Luxury Retail Stores in India and Their Coming of Age

chillibreeze writer — Rima Halani

Until a few decades ago, luxury retail was limited in India and was associated with the rich and upper-middle classes only. Today, with introduction of a large number of international luxury brands in the country, the face of luxury retail in India has undergone a dramatic transformation. ‘Luxury’ is term mostly misunderstood to be beyond the common man’s reach. But over the years, more and more luxurious goods are becoming necessities, not just for the rich classes but also for the middle class populations.

Luxury retail has four important elements - quality, value for money, customer satisfaction, and creativity. For a luxury brand to be successful, it will need to fulfill and sustain these criteria on a long-term basis if it is to survive competition and remain in the market. Retailers often use the term “luxury” to signify their high-end expensive products for the users. The Indian luxury retail market is growing currently at a compounded annual growth of 25% meaning that consumers of luxury goods are increasing day by day in the country. In fact, India is the future destination for luxury retail brands across the globe. Many global luxury brands are planning for great expansion in India and Indian customers are more than ready to spend on these high-end luxury brands. India is set to evolve in a major way if industry experts are to be believed.

India has a huge population of young and fashion conscious shoppers who aspire and follow international lifestyles. Indians people have been travelling globally and they have great exposure to these international brands. They know that these international brands are famous for their quality, durability, and covetedness.

India has the presence of most of the luxury brands of US and Europe which are getting more popularity and consumption of their goods among the people here. Luxury retail is not only limited to foreign brands but there are many Indian retail brands producing luxurious goods for the users. The niche retailing is getting more and more popular day by day and it is a sure indicator of the newest trend catching up with the needs of Indians. Middle class people who are getting huge rise in the disposable income is because of the booming IT as well as other sectors in India. Growth in income is the reason behind the increase in consumption of luxury brands and better lifestyle as well as convenient living and comfort of middle class people.

Indian retail sector is on an upswing and luxury brands are getting more popular among the middle class people is a not doubt thing. The Indian retail sector is expected to grow from $400 billion to $700 billion as predicted by declared by Northbridge Capital. Today’s retailers offer comfort shopping by becoming more active in offering consumers the world class experience. Retailers sense the new psyche of today generation and understand the pulse of Indian shopper who is price conscious yet ready to get the value for money in return of luxury brand and also the retailers are coming with good new product of reasonable price. Retailers allure customers with innovative new schemes in addition to comfort factor. There is no doubt that the Indians are increasingly getting hooked on the modern luxury retail environment.

Luxury retail has great presence in Indian market and growth is expected in the coming years. When talking of the challenges and hindrances for the Indian luxury market it is believed that the international luxury brands need to take care of many aspects to ensure its future position in India. But there are still many challenges to overcome for the luxury retailers which are explained below.

Indians have become brand conscious over the time and now are ready to invest in the luxury brands yet the international retail has limited scope because of the presence of certain percentage of people who do not still see luxury as an important need.
Indian retail space has failed to match the international standards except for the five star hotels. This shortage of retail space exists because of the high rentals in the cities.
India still does not have any street which can be called high fashion street that like of New York’s Fifth Avenue and London’s fashion streets.
Satisfying the customer is still a bit difficult for an international brand in India mainly because of the lack of services.

Despite of all these challenges experts and people still believe that Luxury retail in India has good future.

Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com).

Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in June, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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