It's Mall's versus Families in Mumbai

VS

The beauty & an array of colours combined with multiple aromas had filled the atmosphere at Mahalaxmi Kirana Store in Mahim, when I visited to get a more personal insight into their life, and their current state of affairs .

The Chikane family has been running this business since the last ten years in Mahim. This store is their only source of livelihood, since all the youngsters in their family are studying. They are settled in Chunabhatti with the family of four including their two boys.

Speaking about where he gets his supplies, he said that his major markets are Dana Bander [Grains Bazar] & Mohri Bazar [Spice Bazar] in Vashi where he purchases his supply of spices and grains including rice, wheat, Dal etc. His other markets include Masjid Bander where he purchases dry fruits. His Fast Moving Customer Goods [FMCG] and consumer durable items [such as Shampoos, soaps etc.] are collected from the company.

To start of Mr. Kisan Chikane expressed his concern over the rising impact of mall on his business. Slowly but surely malls are entering into his business in taking away his oldest customers. Mr. Kisan Chikane said, “The appeal of the mall is due to multiple varieties available to customers and overall shopping environment provided by the customer in terms of presentation, comfort & the convenience of one stop destination of shopping that the malls offers which we with our limited resources cannot hope to match in the near future.”

“Another important reason that has aided the popularity of the mall is the cheaper rates they can afford to offer to the customers owing to the 15% discounts they get from their supplies because of the enormous quantity of our purchases. And when you compare this to our shop, the best discount that we can get is around 8% which doesn’t allow us to compare with the malls,” said Mr. Chikane.

But Mr. Kisan Chikane’s spirit is not dampened. “Once the hype and the glamour behind the malls slowly starts to fade away, his customers will slowly returned to the homely & more personal shopping experience they get in our Kirana store,” he expressed with a conviction and belief that is difficult to question.

As things stand out now this issue is definitely far from over and issue hangs in the balance. It is very interesting to see how things unfold in the future. No matter who wins, one thing is for sure, it is us the consumers who will benefit.