Travel to Northern India: Organized Retail in Delhi

Wal-Mart is still persona non grata in India, but organized retail is making huge inroads, probably more in Delhi than anywhere else. Here, a few glimpses. (Yes, the phrase "organized retail" is debatable--the myriad of middlemen and tiny retail shops in India is hardly unorganized--but it's in common use.)

Make default image size larger

An ancient column of an unknown order? No; as the wisp at the top suggests, it's the stack for a shopping center.

Here's the center proper, with no shortage of columns.

Another view. The building echoes some of the official buildings of the original New Delhi, right down to the choice of color. (There are a couple of other pictures of this mall in the folder called New Delhi.)

The interior, like malls across India, is full of international brands but not international retailers, still kept at bay.

Supermarkets are still generations behind the international standard, but here's one of the companies trying to expand rapidly. It's part of Mukesh Ambani's vast empire. A major competitor is Big Bazaar, one of whose stores is shown in the Bhubaneshwar folder, under Peninsular India.

The interior, perhaps twice the size of an American convenience store.

Lots of packaged foods, many (perhaps most) of which would be unfamiliar to a shopper from the United States.

Lots of staff, quick service, few customers, at least in this Noida store at this moment.

The Indian sense of humor: Elmer Fudd remembers Athens.

The last word in Delhi malls, circa 2008.

Interior.