Experimental Investigation of Cannibalisation by Introducing a Global Brand Abreast Existing Indian Store Brand

Globalization of consumer brands and liberalization of the Indian retail sectors are enabling consumers to conveniently purchase their aspirational Global brands. India being one of the fast-developing countries with world’s second largest population and the majority of the retail market being serviced by unorganized retailers, many Global consumer brands are trying to penetrate into the Indian retail market through various routes viz, exclusive branded outlets, franchising and licensing. Ever since the penetration of Global consumer brands have started, the majority of Indian retailers’ and consumers’ perspective towards their own private/store brands is expected to have changed. This change in perspective has put the majority of retailers in India into a quandary and they think that this is surely leading to cannibalization and thereto impacting the store profitability along with losing out their market share slowly to Global brands. In this research, authors have carried out an experiment by introducing a reputed Global apparel brand abreast an existing Indian store apparel brand/private label to investigate; (a) proof, (b) pattern, (c) magnitude, (d) significance and (e) impact of cannibalization and transpired the outcomes of this experimentation into suggestions to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate brand mix strategies.