One Stop Shop

Hi,

I am writing after long, partly work and partly my hectic social life kept me away from my blog. (I love to pretend i am doing something in life..hahaha)

Anyways, all of us have been hearing this huge buzz about retail, one-stop shop, everything under one roof and the jazz.A particualr shoppers stop wants to be a one stop for our dressing up needs, a pantaloon which also wants to do that, a big bazaar wanting to be one stop shop for all home needs and then home furnsihing stores catering to everyhting to do with your house.

And thats not the end, industry experts call it the beggining, I aint listening..but guess who is..

Today morning i read this article in my favorite newspaper supplement delhi times, that Delhi Governement is soon gonna set up the next one stop shop - all your bills(electricity, water, telephone) can be paid while you can get your ration card or election card maid or you can bother booking an appointment at the nearest governement hospital (Appoitnments @ Govt. Hospital??? does such a thing exist) or pay yout IT bills or any other taxes you owe the governemnt. I guess they provided all services except probably the judiciary or may be that will follow soon. All this by 2007 and that too 1500 outlets (Are the racing with subiksha on who can open more outlets?? My bet is soon a paanwalla is gonna go modern retailing, and will beat all of them hollow...Bingo!!).

Well, I am not here to give you facts and figures or tell you what the government is doing or where to put your money, but asking a simple question do we want a one stop shop for everyhting???

I mean with my all due respect to this nice concept, i storngly feel we are stretching it. Imagine, do you just want to go to one stop to shop from a nail polish to the Rs.10,000 watch?? Do you like picking all your clothes at one shop, isnt the fun in discovering new shops, new outlets, different styles, differents lables and prices.

Are we moving back to be the typical middleclass housewife who used to visit superbazaar once every month to buy her grocery, and stock it for a month. Dont we deserve better than that??

After all the 8%+ GDP groth, the rise in incomes and avenues to spend it are we looking at one stop shops for everything?? Do i want to buy a 2000 Rs shirt from the same store which i want to buy a cheap discouneted shirt at Rs.500. Are we gonna feel more premium about wearing the Rs.500 shirt now or less premium about wearing the Rs.2000 shirt ??

Please, dont get me wrong, i am not against one stop shops or modern retial. But there is an undercurrent, theres is a rationality which the current market economics is trying to defy.

At a point of time, people said they buy shirt from shopper stop and used to feel that they are the premium segment, I used to. Now suddenly, I don't - most eople around me dont. Shopper stop is like this huge discount store, where i am not gonna get the range in any one brand, no exclusivity and has less of a premuim tag attached to it. Would i really wanna buy a 2500 shirt from there, when two racks down the shirt os for Rs.599???

It is a known fact that we need choices, and we need choices to shop too. We dont want 6 huge retial giants, we want a 1000 different outlets serving the niche giving me my kinda product, helping me diffrentiate myself.

Indian consumers are gonna skip one step in their evolution as amodern day developed country consumer, and my question is to all the marketers that is that one step the one stop shop for everything???

For any laymen raeading this, just answer to yourself and please do so, answer whether you want to buy all your needs from one place, whether you want to eat different cousines all at one place, do you wanna buy the cheap and the expensive at one place, dont i want choices, dotn i wanna discover new shops, dotn i wanna???

In all this i pay ode to delhi governement as i feel the have got it right.

we dont wanna discover new bill payment sozes do we??, we dont like paying our bills, do we?? we dotn wanna travel for a ration card or election, do we?? Lets leave the appointments at the governemnts hospitals out of the disccussion as i am sure they dotn knwo what they are talking about.

But overall, providing one sotp solutions for such boring mundane things that one needs to do to survive do need a one stop shop as nobody likes doing them. Similarly, for Vegetable and grocery shopping, nobody likes it..so one stop saves time, energy and the blah...But not everything is boring, mundane and things we dont want to do....So think before you open your next retail shop...or think of buying from one...

But yes, let this be a one stop shop for discussion on life, philosphy, management and relationships. Hahahahaha