e4m B2B Special: Retail publications – tapping the growth potential

The retail sector in India has been growing at a healthy rate. Various global rankings on retail have declared India as one of the superior retail destinations for organised retail. This has paved the way for new retail publications to take roots here as well as opened new arenas of growth for the already existing publications in the industry.

Retail publications in India are active on three different fronts – print, web and industry events. exchange4media takes an in-depth look at the current retail space and the players that are playing a key role in its configuration.

The Print Players

In the print segment, some of the key players include ‘Images Retail’, ‘Images Retail’ (Hindi), ‘Progressive Grocer’, ‘Retailer’, ‘Storai’, ‘Twice’, ‘Retail Buzz’ and ‘Retail Stores’, among many others.

‘Images Retail’, a monthly magazine from the Images Group, was launched in 2002. It is the most powerful and resounding voice of Indian retail. The magazine provides a platform for information exchange via media and a link between marketers and the market place.

‘Images Retail’ (Hindi), which was launched in July 2003, opened a wider horizon of knowledge in the fast changing and ever-expanding world of retail. The Hindi version seeks to provide a world view of retail and all that it encompasses.

‘Progressive Grocer’ is an international food and grocery specialty magazine from the Images Group under a licensing agreement with Neilson Company. Launched in September 2007, ‘Progressive Grocer’ is a B2B magazine covering the food and grocery retailing industry – from product sourcing and development to logistics and SKU management and consumer shopping trends, retail display and merchandising technology. The magazine is aimed at suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and distributors across the food and grocery industry.

‘Retailer’, a monthly publication, is targeted at multi-branded outlets, exclusive brand outlets, distributors, retailers, prospective retailers, property owners, retail investors, business buyers, retail professionals working with departmental stores, hypermarkets, super markets, leading retail real estate developers and owners in India and overseas.

‘Storai’, the bi-monthly magazine from Retailers Association of India (RAI), features reports on retail happenings and updates readers about the activities of RAI.

Given the growth potential of the retail industry in India, several international players, too, are eying this market. For instance, Reed Business Information of the US, has recently joined hands with Infomedia Group of India to launch its monthly publication ‘Twice’, which it claims, would fill the information gap of the retailers, distributors and manufacturing representatives in the consumer electronics and major appliance industries.

Suresh Ramakrishnan, Executive Vice President & Country Head, Reed Infomedia, said, “‘Twice’ has been accepted very well in terms of readership and its mindshare among all top honchos of consumer electronic vendor companies. The industry sees it as a great magazine to voice their opinions and know the latest developments in the industry.”

Other print players such as ‘Retail Buzz’ and ‘Retail Stores’ are claimed to be doing well in the print segment.

The Web Players

Web portals, too, are being considered by the retail fraternity as a marketplace providing a common meeting point for retailers, retail support services and solution providers, brand owners, mall developers, as well as all stakeholders of the retail industry.

Some key web players include Indianretailing.com, thedailyretail.com, retailer.com, instoreasia.org and rai.net.in. These websites not only provide the latest information on the retail and franchising industry, but also help the industry players grow their business.

Indiaretailing.com is directed at the retailing community across the world. The portal provides a wide-angle view and analysis of the business of retail in India. Thedailyretail.com mainly targets real estate, financial institutions, researchers and ancillary industries like shop furniture and visual merchandiser.

Apart from these, there are also websites that cover a part of this industry. These include indiamart.com, a website that covers the B2B industry exhaustively.

Industry Events

The industry organises numerous events, conferences and trade shows throughout the year. These events provide a platform for business expansion and meeting new clients.

A quick look at some of the events in 2009:

The Advertisers

The advertisers in this industry include retailers, retail brands, direct selling players, mall developers and B-Schools, which offer retail programme. In addition to these, all corporates who wish to expand their business also constitute a major portion of advertising in the publications pertaining to this industry.

Retail Publications: Present & Future

Gibson Vedmani, CEO & Co-Founder, RAI, noted, “The B2B sector in the publication space, especially in the retail sector, is growing by leaps and bounds as several organisations have forayed into retailing in the last four years. In addition to this, the supplier base in many related areas, such as FMCG, retail technology and other support services, too, have grown significantly. The modern retail sector in India is still a greenfield area and so is the B2B publication space in the sector.”

According to Amitabh Taneja, Editor-in-Chief, Images Group, “The future of retail publications is bright as it is keeping pace with the fast growing retail industry. There is a lot of space for new entrants as well.”

Suresh Ramakrishnan, Executive Vice President & Country Head, Reed Infomedia, pointed out, “The growth potential of retail publications can be judged by the success of our recently launched magazine ‘Twice’, which has been accepted very well in terms of readership and its mindshare among all its target audiences.”

“The publications on this segment, particularly the B2B ones, are poised to grow if they have content that interests various segments of retail sector,” noted Ritu Midha, Strategy & Content Head, TheDailyRetail.com.

Also read:

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