The Indian Mall Culture: Heading for a Paradigm Shift or Unrelenting Nuance! A Critical Review

The past two years has changed the whole landscape of consumer behaviour and the so-called booming mall culture across the globe having no exception to the Indian retail scenario. The reason is a well-known and obvious one to directly attributable to the ‘pandemic brouhaha’. The ‘king of the market’ suddenly became the ‘subservient’ and the malls and big retail outlets lost the very significance of their ‘showcasing’ to impact the impulsive buying. The present paper is an attempt to compare the pre and post-pandemic buyer behaviour and the impact on the mall culture that was rampant till 2019 attracting 100% FDI in India. Twin countervailing effects were witnessed during this imminent risk, (i) consumption for survival with bare minimum essential purchases; (ii) public was indifferent towards the glamour of the malls. These two reasons even question the financial viability (RoI per square feet) keeping in mind the real estate prices as well as the future to offset such colossal losses. Nevertheless, the giant shoppers-stops such as Reliance and Tata’s Croma (being the corporate wizards) could withstand the shocks strategically by adjusting to turgid through their sumptuous backups, superlatively leaping over the old sharks (Future Group’s Big Bazar), and gently manoeuvring through white waters to remain connected with the consumers of tomorrow. The only unfathomable challenge that is visibly encountered by both consumers and malls is the ‘survival of the fittest’. The present paper is an attempt to unravel the myth of consistency in consumer behaviour being assumed by big investments and can fall prey to unprecedented changes happening around that eventually influence inadvertently.