Furedy's Findings...

Christian Furedy, a retail researcher in the early seventies studied the evolution of organized retailing in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the nineteenth century. Her study shows very interesting findings. Over all the cities of India, Kolkata scored high in the pace of evolution of modern retailing. The city had a more diversified retail structure than any of the other colonial cities. Kolkata had ore than five to six popular stores in any line of business whereas Mumbai had only two or three and Chennai had even a more elementary retail structure! Similarly in terms of the retail store segments, she says that they were classified into four major groups: the European retail trade owned and operated by the Europeans, Indian-owned retail stores, the bazaar sector of the city's markets and small-scale retail trade Furedy observes, “The Calcutta retail shops were the "trend setters" for modern retailers throughout the subcontinent. The British-owned retail partnership companies held sway over a clientele located in a wide hinterland.” She goes on to say that the line between the elite retail firms and the bazaar shops was quite distinct inasmuch as the elite retail firms were almost only European and the Calcutta Trades Association admitted no Indian firms for long and the leading Indian retailers then were a part of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce.

While studying the trends of people involved in the retail business, Furedy says that there were only a few Europeans in retailing in Indian cities in the 18th and early 19th centuries and so Indian shopkeepers readily took to supplying the needs of the growing European population. She has observed that Parsis became retailers in numbers in Western India whereas in Calcutta there was no single community dominating the early native-run 'Europe' shops. Furedy says, “Instead a miscellany of Hindus and Muslims operated on the fringes of the formal sector. They probably learnt the skills of catering to Western tastes and needs from an intermediate group of shop-keepers which included Portuguese, Greeks, Armenians and some working class Europeans.” This indeed speaks of our capability to acquire retailing skills fast.

Furedy’s research evidences the factors of transportation and development of communication in the colonial times in India to impact the evolution of modern retailing then. She says that the retail evolutionary changes were dependent upon the development of transporta¬tion and communications in India. With the establishment of the railway lines, retail concessionaires at the stations were established. Mail orders were facilitated by railway transportation. She observes that in 1855 there were 169 miles of railway in India and by 1920, there were 35,199 miles and that every extra mile was important to retailers, many of whom filled more mail orders than "in-person" ones. Her research shows vividly that retailers often lobbied for the extensions of lines and better organization of the railway systems. Along with the development of the railways the spread of the postal system and its wide network was being established in India. Furedy says that the concurrent development of postal services, particularly the parcel post and Value Payable Post (VPP) which was introduced in 1877 impacted the retail trade a great deal. The importance of the VPP to retailers was stressed in the Annual Reports of the Indian Post Office. Improvements in telegraphic communication, she records, benefited retailers. This research shows that as Bombay was linked to London by submarine cable via Suez in 1870, the use of the telegraph for individual commercial transactions became feasible and after 1900, reductions in rates further boosted commercial use. Improved communications, including better and faster postal services, and increased newspaper circulation made possible relevant advertising by print. The Calcutta textile and cloth shops were then known by their distinctively illustrated catalogues that carried careful instructions for self-measurement and custom ordering.

Mail order retailing in the USA emerged in the 1900s and became popular as consumers in the United States grew in their concern about time for shopping consequent on the increased number of workingwomen and working parents. The growth of the railway system and expansion of the US post office supported the mail order delivery system. The growth of telecommunications, courier service, aviation and other infrastructure support services may have a direct relationship in impacting the evolution of many unconventional forms of retailing in India. While analyzing the deterrents to retail growth, Furedy’s research shows that the lack of government policies to govern elite retailing hampered its further growth in the pre-independence era.

In the next phase of retail revolution as we are again in the cusp of retail evolution and transformation and as transportation and communication further improve, will e-commerce be the next generation calling for retailing in India? Will our Government of India come up with the right policies to promote organized retailing?

- Dr. Gibson G. Vedamani