The Indian Mallscape: A Retail Experience Like No Other

The Great Indian Mall Boom began innocuously enough in the early 2000s, with just three malls in existence in the entire country. The rest is, as they say, history as Indian shoppers slowly but surely developed a penchant for shopping in clean, vibrant, climate-controlled and highly enabled malls…

According to a report by Anarock, titled ‘The Rise and Rise of Indian Malls’, rapid urbanisation and digitisation, increasing disposable incomes and lifestyle changes of the middleclass are leading to a major revolution in the Indian retail sector, which is pegged to grow by 60 percent to reach US$ 1.1 trillion by 2020.

The report says that the Indian Government has clearly hit the bulls eye by easing the FDI norms in the retail sector over the past few years. Reacting to the immense opportunities and diminishing entry barriers into the Indian retail scene, overseas retailers are now expanding exuberantly. And it’s not just the metros they’re targeting – even Tier II cities like Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Jaipur, to name a few, are opening up for organised retail in a big way. Malls are literally mushrooming across the Indian subcontinent.

India’s Mushrooming Mallscape

The Great Indian Mall Boom began innocuously enough in the early 2000s, with just three malls in existence in the entire country. The rest is, as they say, history as Indian shoppers slowly but surely developed a penchant for shopping in clean, vibrant, climate-controlled and highly enabled malls rather than in the usual ‘kirana’ shops and scattered individual stores.

According to the Anarock report, despite many hiccups, including the recession of 2007-2008 and the advent of e-commerce businesses, the numbers vouchsafe that Indian malls are definitely here to stay. By 2017-end, there were more than 600 operational malls across the country. Interestingly, more than 30 new shopping malls covering nearly 14 million sq. ft. of area are expected to come up across top eight cities by 2020.

Malls as FECs