Mall Gaon

With the ITC setting up rural malls in Madhya Pradesh, farmers come looking for fertilisers and fashion under one roof

Kanhaiyyalal takes off his shoes at the entrance. After a little persuasion from the security guard, he puts them on again. It8217;s not a temple he8217;s setting foot in, but a mall. Once inside the Choupal Sagar at Rafiqganj in Madhya Pradesh8217;s Sehore district, the 50-year-old farmer from Jatakheda browses around with practised ease. This is not his first trip to this mall set up by the ITC nearly three years ago, the company8217;s first organised retail foray into the hinterland.

The mall8217;s interiors speak of the company8217;s strategy: high ceiling and soft colours to woo the customer, but not too swanky to drive him back to the neighbourhood grocer.

But it8217;s the range of products displayed here that really set this apart from its urban cousins. Fertilisers, lubricants, pesticides and motor pumps share shelf space with branded shirts, electronic goods and watches.

And the signboards are all in Hindi. The shopping patterns too are different.

8220;Unlike in urban areas where women call the shots, here men have the last word. If they like something, they buy it and don8217;t worry too much about costs if they can afford it,8221; says store manager Praveer Prasad. It8217;s equally difficult for them to make a switch if they like a particular brand.

The mall is the busiest during harvest. The 7,000-sq-ft retail section is only part of a huge campus spread over acres. In high season the daily footfall can go up to 5,000 but in the lean months the numbers plunge drastically. These days, for instance, the mall gets an average of 200 visitors every day. The shopping is linked to nature. If the rains are good, the numbers go up.

A customer once pointed to a Plasma television not meant for sale and said he would buy four of them if it rained heavily. 8220;If you can8217;t get them, I am going to take this one away,8221; the prosperous farmer warned the staff.

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But the mall was not always this popular. Initially villagers kept away or like Kanhaiyyalal, removed their shoes before filing in. They would sit on the floor, but now they are comfortable squatting on chairs and watching TV. These days they are slowly switching to readymade clothes and are even game for soft toys. It8217;s a different matter that their first preference in soft toys is a Hanuman introduced after the success of the animation film Hanuman.

On weekends, even urban customers make trips to the Choupal. In fact, when the mall was set up here, even Bhopal didn8217;t have one. Soya and quality wheat have brought in relative prosperity in the region and it was essentially to tap this growing rural market that ITC ventured here. Part of the reason was the information revolution brought on by ITC8217;s e-choupal network that keeps farmers updated on the latest in the market.

Madhya Pradesh already has 10 Choupal Sagars and the company has announced that its target for the state is 40.

Having wired the hinterland, the company has more plans for its rural consumer: to start food courts, insurance offices and training programmes at its malls.