Paco Underhill is a retail guru and the founder of Envirosell, a market research and consulting company. He is also an author of books like What Women Want: The Global Market Place Turns Female Friendly and Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping . Underhill, who was in Kolkata recently to attend the 16th CII Brand Conclave, spoke to BusinessLine on the changing retail scenario in India and the e-commerce boom, among others. Excerpts:

What sort of change are you seeing in the retail landscape of India?

As more and more Indians travel, they get to see what retail is like in Bangkok or Dubai. And, then, they come home and wonder why it isn’t better here. While the Indian retail landscape is improving, I believe it still has a lot of room to grow.

But then, why has organised retail been a slow-starter in India?

It is (because of) legal restrictions and certain degree of Indian protectionism.

On a similar note, global brands too have had tough times here?

In India, there are legal restrictions, sourcing restrictions and consumers often don’t recognise that they are better off buying elsewhere. Part of what we look at is that fast fashion issues have exploded everywhere and the question is how to bring such fashion to the Indian market. Zaras, Mango, H&Ms have prospered.

In India, e-commerce is booming. Your comments.

It is one of the ways in which India is trying to go from the 19th to the 20th century.

But none of these e-tailers break even?

That is because they are trying to build marketshare.

Indian e-commerce is characterised by deep-discounting. Does it help?

Discounting is like opium for the market. It means first of all people don’t understand price. The goods themselves are being discounted. For instance, if one sees a pair of pants at ₹X one day, and at ₹x-20 per cent the next day, do you think they will ever go back and buy it at ₹x. So I think, it (discounting) is a poisonous process.

Will e-commerce survive in India?

E-commerce will survive. It is just a matter of what pain they will have to go through. One of the things that is interesting about e-commerce is at the nascent level it is very easy to knock off. But, once someone shows that something works, then it is easy to build something.

So do you foresee some changes in the Indian retail in the coming days?

There obviously has to be some changes. The world is getting smaller and the government is getting less effective about being able to make controls. As the world shrinks, we will see some changes happen. The world of shopping is going to change more in the next five years than what it has in the previous 50.

But can India develop as a shopping destination – on the lines of Dubai or Bangkok – any time soon?

The answer is: what are the other ways in which these cities (Dubai, Singapore or Bangkok) are attracting people. Some of it is not just shopping. But it could be through medical tourism, education, resort access and so on. So it could be medicine, sports and so on. However, in order to be a healthy place, you have to deal with air-pollution issues. It is a major problem.

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