A few weekends ago I coerced my kids to accompany me for the weekly vegetable buying trip, as my spouse was travelling.
Amongst the various reasons/ excuses given by my children for not coming to do vegetable shopping was that it was boring. To reiterate this point of view my college going son strongly stated that he would never go for vegetable purchases when he grows up. When I teased him about being chauvinistic, he replied with a simple statement of fact that it was boring and that most people in that age group regardless of gender would not be interested in “wasting” their time in such tasks. They would rather hire someone to do this for them.
Initially I dismissed this perspective as a youthful one. However, it has been at the back of my mind. I am now beginning to wonder if India would see a sudden shift in shopper behavior which would not only spawn new services but also lead to paradigm shifts in Indian Retail.
The reason why I am debating this is due to a study that was done more than ten years ago to understand price and value perception amongst housewife. It was interesting and an eye opener to say the least. One of the things thrown up in the study was how a housewife would readily pay a Rupee (Bear with the text till I get the new font!!) more for cleaned Rawa while she would not do so for cleaned Rice. The reasoning was that the perception of the effort justified the extra Rupee as also the fact that she anyways cleans and rinses the rice before cooking.
So, the question in my mind is;
Are shoppers changing? Will they pay and outsource functional (AKA boring) shopping? Is India heading towards a personal shopper service of a different kind?
My personal view is that as of now I don’t see the majority paying to get shopping done. I am basing this on my observation of shopper behavior and price-value perceptions. Even today an advertisement for a Rs. 149/- tawa draws a crowd! However, this could change. How soon, I don’t know!!
Please share your comments and views on this topic. I shall also explore this further and post more regarding the same.
2 comments:
very interesting .Always nice to read your insights Rajesh.Thanks and have a great weekend.
Rajesh,I am sure there are people already doing this...so many busy professionals.
Lack of time and so much more to do,one will outsource all tasks which can be and are of no interest to an individual.
If I hire people for my household services then I would be happy if somebody took care of grocery,dry cleaning and other such stuff.
I see in my house my sister in law manages to fit in quality time with her kids only because she ensures for all the mundane/routine work is taken care by others....including shopping for kids uniforms etc.
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