The Hindu Business Line : Retail bandwagon, the bull in a china shop

On November 3, Hyderabad saw the launch of almost a dozen `Reliance Fresh' shops selling fruits and vegetables, flowers and dairy products. Monday saw the announcement by Bharti Group about the tie-up with Wal-Mart for a `mega-retail store joint venture'. And on Wednesday, Hyderabad was again witness to a shop-opening: `Metro Cash & Carry' wholesale outlet spread in an area of 1,00,000 square feet, housing over 18,000 products ranging from stationery, electronic goods, gift items to vegetables, fruits, dairy products fish, meat and clothes, as a one-stop shop to cater to the business needs of retailers, traders, hoteliers, caterers and so on.

Time to come to terms with shops, you'd agree.

Pan-India presence

For, Reliance plans to have `a pan-India presence' by opening outlets in `784 urban towns and 6,000 retail mandi towns in the rural areas by 2011', by when `each store will target some 3,000 households in over an area of two kilometres', and the turnover will be Rs 1,000 billion.

"Wal-Mart operates stores in 14 countries, serving more than 176 million customers around the globe each week," informs www.walmartfacts.com.

The retail giant's employees (`associates') number 1.8 million entailing a staff cost of $4.7 billion, its revenues crossed $315 billion, and net income last year was $10.3 billion. Wal-Mart's `Fiscal 2008 Growth Plans', as announced on October 23, speak of adding 60 million square feet of shop space, and `more than 600 new locations'. And Metro Group, `the third largest trading and retailing group in the world', as www.metro.co.in informs, `employs over 2,50,000 staff in 30 countries'; it recorded sales of over $55.7 billion in 2005.

Decisive Battle

Even as we get set for a decisive battle in the retail space, it is eerie to know that `shop' appears immediately after `shoot-out' in Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Shop is defined as a building where goods or services are sold. "A retail business that sells consumer merchandise and sometimes services," says Encarta.

"Hen, hen, hen, hen, I've been up and down to every shop, in town, and cannot find a shoe to fit your foot, if I'd crow my hea--art out," sang the cock in a nursery rhyme, in those days when no mega-shopping mall was in sight. And `Handy Pandy, Jack-a-dandy,' who `loves plum cake and sugar candy' would buy just these `at a grocer's shop' and out would came, `hop, hop, hop!'

Shop, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is `a handicraft establishment'. Dipping into the Bard's works, you'd find, in Coriolanus, Sicinius telling Brutus about `tradesmen within their shops... going about their functions friendly'.

And in The Comedy of Errors, Antipholus of Syracuse claims, "Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop and show'd me silks that he had bought for me."

As a verb, shop means to look for and buy (things), as Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines. "We shop in malls because they're convenient," reads an example on http://dictionary.cambridge.org. A shopping mall is explained as "a very large building or buildings containing a lot of stores and restaurants, usually with space outside for parking." `Shopper' is the one who is looking for things to buy, `shopping' or `shopping around' is the activity that may lead to buying, `shopping cart' is "a large container made of metal rods that rests on a wheeled base and has an open top and a handle at the back that you push," and `shopping centre' is "a group of stores with a common area for cars to park". Shop or `shoppe' is "a small retail store or a specialty department in a large store," states The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language on www.bartleby.com. "An atelier; a studio. A place for manufacturing or repairing goods or machinery," is more. Shoppe is `used mainly on store signs to suggest old-fashioned quaintness,' notes www.wordsmyth.net.

The Origins

Tracing the origin of shop, the noun, one finds that it is more than eight centuries old. Online Etymology Dictionary states: "1297, perhaps from Old English scoppa `booth or shed for trade or work' (rare), related to scypen `cowshed.'" In German dialect, scopf means `porch, cart-shed, barn,' and schuppen means `a shed'. However, the dictionary postulates that Middle English might have acquired the word from Old French eschoppe `booth, stall,' which is a Germanic `loan-word from the same root'. Shopping cart is recorded from 1956, and shopping list first attested 1913, informs www.etymonline.com. "The meaning `to visit shops' is first attested 1764. Shop around is from 1922," is more from an entry for shop (verb).

Famous shopaholics

Products on shelves become `shop-soiled' over time or due to handling in the shop. And those who obsessively love shopping and, therefore, compulsively shop are called `shopaholic'.

Famous shopaholics in history include `Marie Antoinette, Mary Todd Lincoln, William Randolph Hearst, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Imelda Marcos and Princess Diana,' informs http://moneycentral.msn.com.

"Some shop out of loneliness, others for the rush of it, still others to fill some inner need. Some seek greater self-esteem, others use it to battle depression. Some shop to return to a happy childhood, others to escape a bad one."

Watch out, compulsive shopping, which is `especially difficult to treat', can result when the `retail' bandwagon rages on like a bull in a china shop.

Shop is where a lot of business generally happens, but Oxford Dictionary of Business has no entry for the word. Thus, after `Shogun bond', what you have is `shopping on demand', which means `the ability of the Internet to enable customers to shop at any time'. The phrase, `shopping product', is defined as a product that is `compared with others taking into account its suitability, quality, price and style'.

Shop assistant of the US is the sales clerk of the UK, as http://encarta.msn.com clarifies. A few other words and phrases to pick up when you go shopping for `shop' are `shop floor' (workshop where production is carried out); `shop steward' (workers' representative elected by union members); and `shopping bag' (a bag in which you put things in).

`Shopfront' is the façade that impresses, `shopkeeper' is the owner who runs the shop, and `shop window' is a display area where products are kept on show. To `window-shop' is to merely look at the goods at the shop windows, without intending to immediately buy. On the contrary, `shoplifting' is to pick things up from the shop, without intending to pay.

It may seem that customers are sleepwalking down the shop's aisles, absent-mindedly adding things to their shopping carts; but `shopwalkers' or floorwalkers are senior employees who supervise assistants and direct customers in large shops. To many, shopping is an automatic exercise, and to the tech savvy, there are `shopbots' search the Net for specific products and fetch comparative prices.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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