The Consumer perception of Information Technology Tools in Organized Retail Industry: A study

Retail industry in general is one of the fastest growing sectors of the Indian Economy. Initially in India retailing was mostly unorganized. Indian Government was reluctant for opening the Indian retail sector for FDI. However in the year 1997 Indian Government allowed foreign direct investment in cash and carry wholesale and as such it paved the way for emergence of modern organized retail in India. Presently organized retail accounts for approx 5-6 % of the total retail revenue. Present retail industry operates on very thin margin and it is very much desirable that the resources of retail are optimized. Globalization of point of supply and point of sale generates tremendous amount of data, the manual processing of which is very difficult. Real time information is needed by almost all partners of retail like line managers, sales personnel and store managers and it can only be achieved by the use of IT tools. Information technology solutions are presently being used in various aspects of retail like finance and accounting, product display; data processing and analysis, radio trolleys, electronic labels, Radio Frequency Identification and customer relationship management etc. Further IT tools are also required to give customers a better experience. The present paper is an attempt to know the perception of organized retail customers of Indian State, Uttar Pradesh, regarding the application of IT tools in retail. For this purpose IT paraphernalia which are most frequently encountered by the customers have been selected for the study. The study was conducted in Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and Agra (KAVAL) town of Uttar Pradesh. The data generated has been analyzed by statistical tools. The result of paper provides an insight of customers liking and satisfaction regarding various IT tools in retail. The result of the paper is useful for retail professionals, academicians, common man and in designing further IT assistance in retail.