Research Paper
Year: 2018 | Month: June | Volume: 5 | Issue: 6 | Pages: 183-190
Retailer-Customers’ Association with the Cash-And-Carry Metro
Shabana Anjum1, Dr. B. G. Sathyaprasad2
1Research Scholar, Dravidian University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, India.
2Director, G.T. Group of Institution, Bangalore.
Corresponding Author:Shabana Anjum
ABSTRACT
India’s traditional retail sector has undergone a sea change in the recent past. Not taken too seriously in the past by the domestic investors or foreign investors, the retail sector has lately grown rather too fast and has been operating in various formats. One such format is the cash-and-carry format under wholesale trading, where the retail player concerned is required to cater to the needs of only retailers, industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users or to other wholesalers and related subordinated service providers. Put differently, wholesale trading implies sales for trade, business and profession, as opposed to sales to personal consumption. The yardstick to determine whether the sale is wholesale or not would be the type of customers to whom the sale is made and not the size and volume of sales. Wholesale trading would include resale, processing and thereafter sale, bulk imports with ex-port/ex-bonded warehouse business sales and B2B e-commerce. One such major cash-and-carry player that operates in Bangalore is Metro Cash & Carry India from the stable of METRO, a leading international specialist in wholesale and food retail. The researcher set out to ascertain the factors that lead the resellers and institutional buyers to patronise Metro, Bangalore as also the outcome of the retailer-customers’ association with Metro, Bangalore, overall. The researcher concludes that it makes financial sense and business sense for the resellers and institutional buyers to associate with Metro, Bangalore. The latter also helps them digitise their business and exploit technology, thereby saving valuable resources like time, energy and money for them. The researcher further concludes that the country’s organised retailers and traditional retailers can co-exist and co-operate for mutual benefit. It is a positive sum game.
Key words: B2B e-commerce; cash-and-carry; institutional buyer; reseller; yardstick
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