With a $2,3 trillion gdp India is a huge consumer's market and will keep attracting FDI in retail goods. But one needs to understand that even though such investments make the economy look good the fact remains that only 1,3% of Indian population owns and controls 72% of Indian wealth. Common man has no share in this .
Just my 2 cents.
It is like this, either whole of the India can remain dismally poor or some of Indians can get really rich while rest comparatively poor but still better.
1960-80s was the first scenario, by choosing a socialistic model all of Indians were more equal than present. Almost all of them were dismally poor. After 90s India has followed a captialistic model, now there is a surge in self made billionaires in India and new rich folks. People with skills are getting high paid jobs.
What India needs to do is to diversify its economy and diversify its human capital skills. Some fields yield results fasters like IT and software while others take time. That said, for the sake of other fields, India should not slow down the first. It is noteworthy that almost all of the newly minted rich are not exactly getting rich by exploiting poor, they are getting rich by finding avenues which were simply not seen before. Like PayTM (Mobile payment), Like MuSigma (Data Analytics), Like Ola (Ride sharing) etc. All of these companies are built on skills provided by skilled engineers and not poor labourers.
So this ineqaulity of wealth is not exactly a social phenomenon. It is more of a economic one based in capitalism. The alternative we already know does not work in India.
These large store chains kill small shop owners. Small business suffers alot due to these giants.
Its too early to tell this. People thought the same about Olas and Flipkarts. All I hear from Punjab is that saavy small shop owners are finding more customers this way. Flipkart provides logistics and shop/business owners provide goods.
I don't know how will it play out. May be IKEA's model of having huge shop spaces may or may not work out in India. For we know that in India mostly small businesses with limited inventory usually works better. Also, one of the selling points of IKEA is that owners assemble the items by themselves -- or you pay assembling price. Don't know how well this will work out in India. Assembling by yourself and DIY is a very western idea, may or may not work in India. Also all the IKEA furnitures are cookie cutter. In India usually you can ask your local furniture guy to customize a furniture to your specs and they will do it and deliver it. So, Lets see how well it works out.
