Retail Organizations Research Articles

Security practices in retail properties in a developing economy: a logistic analysis of impacts on customers’ satisfaction and patronage

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a soft facility practice in the organized retail sector. In specifics, it draws context from a security practice and assesses its effect on customers’ satisfaction and patronage in retail properties.Design/methodology/approachThe research method is quantitative. The study used a survey research design with the use of a structured questionnaire for data collection. The data were collected from the head of households who purchase items in the retail shops. It applied a logistic regression model to estimate customers’ satisfaction and the effect of the current security practice on patronage.FindingsContrary to expectation, descriptive analysis of data shows that respondents were satisfied with the security procedure with weighted means scores (3.62, 3.74, 3.78 and 3.66) above average for bag check at exits, reconciliation of receipts with purchase, the attitude of security personnel during exit checks and time taken during exit checks. With specific reference to bag checks at the exit, logit shows that 32% were neutral while 8% were dissatisfied with the security practice. Among the dissatisfied, logit shows an odds ratio of 0.059, which implies that they are likely to verbally express their dissatisfaction with the shop. On the other hand, the chances that they would not do this are more likely with an odds ratio of 162818201.343. Further, continuous patronage (Loyalty) is strongly less likely with an odds ratio of 1.250E-22. This was corroborated by a similar odd ratio of 4.068E-11 estimated for those that would take the exit option due to the bag’s check.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this study is that samples were randomly drawn from an unknown population of customers. However, the study was guided by Cochran (1963) to select a valid representative sample and support the reliability of the research findings.Practical implicationsThe findings on satisfaction imply that the convenience and swiftness associated with shopping in a retail shop had been eroded by the current security facility practices which may lead to a reduction in the growth and retail sector turnover. While many dissatisfied customers would have exited if there are alternative shops with more customer-friendly security practices, the limited number of organized retail shops in the study area will prevent this from happening.Originality/valueLiterature on the management of facilities in real estate is quite vast; however, not much attention has been paid to the management of security in the retail sector particularly in Nigeria. This study is, therefore, novel, as it provides seminal evidence on this important topic and will serve as a reference for further research in Nigeria.

Managing the retail operations in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Morocco.

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) and resulting lockdowns have contributed to major retail operational disturbances around the globe, forcing retail organizations to manage their operations effectively. The impact can be measured as a black swan event (BSE). Therefore, to understand its impact on retail operations and enhance operational performance, the study attempts to evaluate retail operations and develop a decision‐making model for disruptive events in Morocco. The study develops a three‐phase evaluation approach. The approach involves fuzzy logic (to measure the current performance of retail operations), graph theory (to develop an exit strategy for retail operations based on different scenarios), and ANN and random forest‐based prediction model with K‐cross validation (to predict customer retention for retail operations). This methodology is preferred to develop a unique decision‐making model for BSE. From the analysis, the current retail performance index has been computed as “Average” level and the graph‐theoretic approach highlighted the critical attributes of retail operations. Further, the study identified triggering attributes for customer retention using machine learning‐based prediction models (MLBPM) and develops a contactless payment system for customers' safety and hygiene. The framework can be used on a periodic basis to help retail managers to improve their operational performance level for disruptive events.

Food systems transformation in Asia – A brief economic history

AbstractAsia's food systems have undergone rapid economic and socio‐cultural transformations in the past 60 years. During the period, almost all the countries in the region eradicated famines and achieved food self‐sufficiency and heterogeneous levels of poverty reduction. Food system transformation in Asian countries has had similarities and differences and has been closely tied to structural transformation, political processes, and integration with the global economy. This article conducts a historical assessment of food systems transformations in seven Asian countries between 1960 and 2020 and their main economic, social, and demographic drivers. Food systems transformations are presented in terms of four phases. In the first phase, between 1960 and 1980, when most Asian countries were low‐income and low‐middle‐income, the central focus was on hunger reduction. We explore the policies and the politics of the green revolution as various Asian countries tried to achieve self‐sufficiency in food grains. In the second phase (1980–2000), agricultural productivity growth led to structural transformation, income growth, and the divergence of lower‐middle‐income and middle‐income economies, directly impacting demand for food quantity, quality, and diversity in various countries. The third phase (2000 onwards) marked a quantum change in food systems as globalization, trade integration, and changes in consumer tastes were significant drivers of food systems. We assess the changing trends in organized retail expansion, increased consumption of processed foods, and rising incidence of obesity in lower and upper‐middle‐income countries. In the final phase (beyond 2020), we highlight how the digital revolution has changed consumer behavior, and is further transforming food systems. Future food systems challenges of hunger, malnutrition, rising non‐communicable diseases, and climate change are discussed and multisectoral and multicountry policy interventions for addressing them are presented.

Identification and Analysis of Dental Education Quality in Saudi Arabia

Objectives: Saudization can be defined as recruiting and hiring Saudis in both the governmental and private sectors. This process is being introduced by the Ministry of Labor to reduce the number of unemployed. Lowering the unemployment rate from 11.6% to 7% is one of the new vision goals to be reached by 2030. The SERVQUAL model is used to assess customer perceptions of service quality in service and retail organizations through five dimensions: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. This study aims to measure the effect of these quality dimensions on students' willingness to be and satisfaction being educated by Saudi faculty in dental colleges. The focus of this research is to determine which quality dimensions most affect students while being educated by Saudi faculty in dental colleges. The contribution of this research will help future research to develop strategic operational objectives to enhance education quality. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed. A total of 432 participants (198 male students and 234 female students) were included in the study. An electronic questionnaire with a scale from 0 to 5 using the SERVQUAL model was formulated. Results: The results were analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (SPSS, version 21, Chicago, Illinois, USA). The weighted scale was 4.01, 4.12, 4.03, 3.25, and 3.78 for reliability, assurance, accountability, empathy, and education quality of Saudi faculty, respectively. Furthermore, the weighted scale was 3.7 and 3.71 for students' satisfaction and student willingness to attend future lectures, respectively. Conclusion: Students had high agreement with the reliability, accountability, and education quality of Saudi dental faculty. However, the assurance dimension showed significant side effects on student willingness to attend future lectures. On the other hand, the empathy dimension showed significant side effects on participants' perception of satisfaction and student willingness to attend future lectures.

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION IN RETAIL

Communication is a very important part of a manager's job. Every manager communicates with their team, colleagues and his/her manager. Effective communication in the organization is the basis for achieving the goals of the organization, motivating people and creating trust environment. If a manager is able to motivate his/her team, people are willing to do more for the company and themselves. Also, a trust environment supports achieving the company goals, working environment in a team and the whole company culture as well. People communicate nonstop, they share their ideas, opinions, discuss basic daily issues, talk to friends and family members and similar. Even if they do not talk, they communicate because they send nonverbal signals to other people. The best way of communication is face-to-face in real-time. Nowadays, there are many ways how to communicate using modern technologies. These technologies can help if there are long distances between people, e.g., for conference calls with more countries, but this paper focuses on interpersonal face-to-face communication. Communication should enable smooth cooperation with others, e.g., by active listening, managers may get more information about their team members than just listening without paying attention. No less important is non-verbal communication in the interpersonal communication process between two or more people. Different signals may improve added value to the whole conversation, highlight the main information, keep people interested in listening, and tell more than just expressing by using words. Communication is a complex process. Many researchers spend their lives researching this field and looking for ways of effective communication. Everybody can learn how to communicate more effectively and lead the team towards the company goals. The main goal of this paper is the identification of the effectiveness of communication in an international retail organization and to cover the gap in the literature that does not focus on retail. The research took place in its branch in Germany. This research used a questionnaire consisting of questions where respondents indicated answers on a Likert scale Based on the research, it is possible to point out the strengths and weaknesses in the communication process between managers and subordinates. This paper shows how employees and managers communicate and their mutual satisfaction. 48 employees participated in the research of a total of 187 employees, which means the return rate of the questionnaire is 25.67%. The communication process in the selected organization is at a good level, however, with some deficiencies. Among the positive aspects, there is an openness in interpersonal communication and in the department as well, moreover a clear and unambiguous communication of the manager, active listening and understanding of messages that support the effective communication process in the organization. On the other hand, there are some deficiencies, for instance, employees lack more feedback, another issue occurs in the communication process between the manager and his/her team, which is about information flow, where only about a quarter of the information the employees receive from their manager. The benefit of this research is seen for HR professionals, managers and scholars who may get an overview of the pros and cons of interpersonal communication based on results from a questionnaire focused on the way of communication at the company and between supervisor and his/her team and team members.

Revisit intentions: Novel social responsibility of mall for strengthening mall reputation and perceived trust during fear-arousal of Covid-19 pandemic in India

The study aims to access the philanthropic influence of malls in creating trust among the shoppers to revisit them during the Covid-19 Unlock Period. Smart PLS-SEM was used to evaluate the responses of 607 customers who voluntarily participated in the survey carried out in Delhi – NCR, India. The study encompasses the hypotheses that the social responsibility of mall generates mall reputation, which in turn strengthen perceived trust, and ultimately the revisit intention. The results established the social responsibility of the mall as a key factor in building mall reputation and fostering trust among the shoppers, ensuring their revisits. The findings also supported shoppers’ revisit intention under the varying influence of fear-arousal. The moderating effect of fear arousal on the relationships of mall reputation – revisit intention, and perceived trust – revisit intention in the organized retail industry has been adjudged as a novelty of the present study. The study recommends its application in framing strategies to strengthen the social commitments by retailers and malls, and also to ameliorate fear-arousal among shoppers during such pandemics. The study proposes avenues for further research in context to the social responsibilities of hospitality-related set-ups during a pandemic with varied variables.

Geleneksel Perakendeci Bakkalların Rekabetçi Stratejileri: Değer Zinciri Analizi

Türkiye’de gıda perakende sektörünü oluşturan aktörler arasında bakkallar sayıca en büyük paya sahiptir Ancak zincir marketler yabancı perakendecilerin pazara girmesi ve özellikle de ulusal zincirlerin güç kazanmasıyla birlikte son yıllarda bakkallar için önemli bir tehdit unsuru haline gelmiştir. Perakende coğrafyası alanında geleneksel gıda perakendecilerinin modern zincirlere karşı izlediği direnme ve baş etme stratejileri genellikle dayanıklılık (resilience) perspektifinden incelenirken, bu çalışmada bakkalların rekabet stratejileri değer zinciri perspektifinden analiz edilmektedir. Bu doğrultuda bu çalışmanın amacı Eskişehir ölçeğinde bakkalların rekabetçi avantajlarını Porter’ın önerdiği değer zinciri analizi modeliyle ortaya koymaktır Bu hedef doğrultusunda Eskişehir'de bakkallar, yerel/bölgesel/ulusal/küresel market zincirleri ve firma dışı aktörler ile toplam 40 derinlemesine görüşme yapılmış ve elde edilen veriler nitel yöntemlerle analiz edilmiştir. Buna göre bakkalların, organize market zincirleri karşısında kullandığı rekabetçi stratejiler saptanmıştır. Elde edilen bulgulara göre organize market zincirlerinin yaygınlaşmasıyla bakkalların rollerinde bir değişim meydana gelmiştir. Bakkallar, değer yaratmak ve/veya artırmak için esas ve destekleyici faaliyetleri başta olmak üzere faaliyetlerinde yeni stratejiler uygulamak durumunda kalmıştır. Ancak bakkalların rekabetçiliklerini koruyabilmeleri için bu stratejiler yeterli olmamakta ve bu nedenle düzenleyici çerçevenin müdahalesi gerekmektedir. Sonuç olarak perakende mekanlarının analizi değer zinciri yaklaşımın ekonomik coğrafya için yeni bir perspektif sunduğunu göstermektedir.

Organized retailing& Consumer Buying Behavior: A Changed Scenario

The growth of organized retailing has witnessed a paradigm shift in the consumer buying behavior. With the boom in the retail sector, there is a change in the pattern of shopping. Firms are becoming more customer conscious and are gradually moving towards sustainable Marketing. Shoppers are enjoying doing shopping like never before. With increased disposable income and brand infusion, the shoppers are buying more and the shopping behavior has seen a great change. This manuscript attempts to provide insight on the effects of various factors on the changed consumer buying behavior and has also categorized the shoppers based on their lifestyle distinctiveness. Our meta-analysis suggests that there are various categories of consumers as Location conscious, Discount seekers, Price conscious, Mall freekers and Brand conscious consumers. Their shopping pattern differs on the basis of the category in which they lie. This research deploys factor analysis to identify the structure of a set of variables apart from providing a process of data reduction. The primary data constituted of 135 responses through structured undisguised questionnaires. The survey questionnaire constituted of 25 items to capture the psychographic behavior of buyers and thereafter to categorize them based on their perceptions. This research aims to identify the perceptions of buyers with respect to their purchase activities. These variables are thereafter categorized into 5 main factors using Factor Analysis on SPSS. Keywords: Organized retailing, Buying Behavior, Customer, Lifestyle

Cultivating a Leadership Pipeline: Using a Real Options Lens to Understand Executives’ Strategic Staffing Decisions

This paper adapts real options theory to explain how executives create and maintain real options portfolios within leadership pipelines. Hypotheses flowing from our theorizing predict that executives often make seemingly risky staffing decisions for leaders who occupy stepping-stone positions. Focusing on their option (future potential) rather than project (current productivity) value, executives laterally transfer leaders in stepping-stone positions frequently, despite it resulting in lower short-term job performance, but often promote these leaders at lower levels of performance and sooner. Once leaders are promoted to destination positions where they may stay indefinitely, executives tend to transfer high-performing leaders more often but not when they are still improving the effectiveness of their current unit. We present evidence suggesting that executives make these decisions to improve other units and maintain a flexible system, possibly recapturing previous investments in developing those leaders. We provide empirical support for our hypotheses using eight years of data in a large retail organization (n = 25,004) where executives overseeing thousands of units made internal mobility decisions. These findings refine real options theory, show that it explains these phenomena better than existing theories, and provide important and immediately usable practical implications for executives. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1608 .

Product, equipment, uniform: Material environment and the consumption of work in New Delhi, India

AbstractThe article focuses on how low and lower-middle class youth employed in new private sector jobs in the booming service economy in Indian cities engage with the material environment of their workplace, and how, through their ‘aesthetic scrutiny’ of its materiality, come to ‘consume’ work. The setting is the store floor of a fast-expanding organized retail company, called Spexy, that sells budget eyewear products. Through ethnographic elaboration, the article follows how the Spexy staff deride the ‘un-branded’ products, ‘un-technical’ equipment, and ‘un-professional’ uniforms at their workplace. The company, as constituted of these ‘poor’ materials, is mocked for failing in its ‘company-ness’ and branded ‘fake’. The material environment of the workplace provides a platform for the articulation of larger configurations of ‘feelings’ the youth seek to give and get through formal employment in a private company. These articulations, in turn, reveal larger sociocultural valuations regarding ideas of social mobility and visibility in contemporary India where there is a strong interest in brand regimes and brand value hierarchies, fixation with technological education and expertise, and attraction towards a corporate work culture in the private sector, and, concomitantly, a strong desire amongst the store staff to craft branded, technical, and professional work identities. By putting the scholarship on work and consumption in dialogue, the article demonstrates how bottom-rung urban workers look expectantly to the material environment of company work to fulfil these desires.

A Necessary Evil: The Role of the Secretariat in Effective Meta-Organizations. Lessons from the Multilevel Study of a Business Cooperative

Meta-organizations (MOs) are organizations whose members are organizations. They are a collective form of organizing and are often coordinated by a secretariat, an entity that is created within the MO. The secretariat is responsible for achieving the purpose of the MO on behalf of the member organizations. We study how the secretariat may contribute to make the MO more effective at achieving its members purpose. We rely on an in-depth case study to show how a business cooperative of organic retailers became what can be labeled as a ‘strong meta-organization’, that is, an organization able to sustain itself and to achieve its purpose while protecting membership by preserving the engagement of its member organizations within the MO. Paradoxically, the member organizations became increasingly dependent on their MO as it became more effective at achieving its purpose. To become more effective, the MO granted its secretariat with three types of control prerogatives: technical, bureaucratic, and political. Therefore, the dependence that members experience when they join an MO may be considered as a necessary evil as it appears as a consequence of its effectiveness, effectiveness being defined as the ability to achieve the common purpose of members. This research contributes to MO theory by highlighting the role played by the secretariat in the effectiveness of an MO. We contend that the MO theory should better integrate the study of the secretariat into this stream of research, making room for more actorhood in characterizing MOs as specific social objects.

A Business Framework of Architecture for a Retail Information System

Purpose: Retail is one of the most important sectors in modern life. Retail information systems support organizational processes in retail chains. Since such systems are very complex, they need to be structured in a framework based on actual business requirements for understanding the nature and sources of retail information systems. This article focuses on developing a business framework of architecture for a retail information system. This framework allows us to explore the main modules of retail information system. Design/methodology/approach: Research is based mainly on theoretical studies of retail information systems. Findings: As a result, we developed a framework that enables integration of processes in the following areas: assortment management, floor planning, shelf space allocation, pricing strategies, promotion, and store operations. Such solutions allow, among others, for optimization of available shelf space, reducing out-of-stocks, increasing employee productivity, enhance company profitability and improve customer satisfaction. Research limitations/implications: Because of the fact that in retail organizations, RIS modules are generally managed by different departments, some issues in implementation and data transfer could appear. Moreover, in the current framework, there is no artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things included. Originality/value: The results of the research can be used both by retail information systems developers and by retail managers in traditional and online retailing.

Perceptions of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards as a Motivator amongst Managers at a Furniture Retail Organisation

Managers are increasingly expressing their anxiety about their future security and are more concerned than ever about their job security and a stable set of rewards. This concern has been triggered by the employers who are having to make increasingly difficult decisions about their workforce compensation and its relationship to performance. The aim of this study was to determine whether rewards are perceived as a motivator by managers at a retail company. Non-probability sampling was employed as the intent was to survey lower-level and middle managers only. SPSS Version 15 was used to analyse the data to ensure that a quantitative analysis for the study could be conducted. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for this study to distinguish between two groups of samples in the population. The results showed that there was a significant difference between higher earning and lower earning managers in the level of importance attributed to rewards from management.

A Study on Human Resource Management Practices in Organized Retailing Outlet with Special Reference to Selected Retailers in Coimbatore City

This study aims to assess the retail formats in India have evolved vastly over a relatively short period of seven to eight years. Human resource management practices in Organized retailing outlet with special reference to selected retailers in Coimbatore city. Retailers today are focused on drawing customers into the Stores to drive sales while at the same time reducing cost overheads. This present study aims to focus on beyond the impact of globalization and mergers and acquisitions, retail organizations continue to struggle with the recruitment of service-oriented employees. Keywords: Human Resource Management, Organized, retailing, Growth and retailers .

The Impact of Organic Specialist Store Entry on Category Performance at Incumbent Stores

Premium organic retailers are specialist retailers that exclusively offer organic products. Prior literature has not studied their entry, focusing instead on the impact of generalist store entry. This study examines the impact of premium organic specialist store entry on category performance at incumbent generalist stores for 47 packaged food and beverage categories. The results indicate that incumbent stores lose sales after a local organic store entry and that the impact of price on sales at generalist stores becomes stronger. The authors postulate that incumbent stores can reduce sales losses by reducing the relative distinctiveness of the entrant along three dimensions: variety, price–quality, and authenticity. Empirical results show that more variety in organic products, as well as more organic feature and display advertising, protect generalist stores from premium organic specialist store entry. Assortments composed of premium organic products are harmed less, whereas assortments in which organic products are subject to more frequent and deeper price promotions are harmed more. Furthermore, including products from an organic specialist brand in generalists’ organic assortments offers additional protection.

Driving Retail Cross-Selling

Cross-selling is one of the most important sales strategies retail organizations adopted to drive business revenue and increase customer lifetime value. While considerable efforts have been devoted to developing data-based cross-selling models, little is known about how and when store managers can drive frontline service employees (FSEs) to cross-sell. Drawing on work meaningfulness literature, we propose that a high-quality resource exchange relationship with the store manager (i.e., leader–member exchange, LMX) endows FSEs’ work with meaningfulness of serving others, which in turn promotes their engagement in cross-selling. We further contend that when store managers possess high person-organization fit, the impact of their LMX relationships on FSEs’ work meaningfulness of serving others and subsequent cross-selling would be stronger. A three-wave survey data from 166 FSEs and their store managers in a retail chain in China (i.e., Study 1) and an experiment among 120 U.S.-based working employees (i.e., Study 2) support our predictions. The present research offers important theoretical and practical implications for retailing management area.

Retailing in Kerala: Factors Affecting Growing Retail Market in the State

Emergence of organized retailing is a hotly debated issue in the state for last few years. Unfortunately, there is dearth of detailed investigations regarding the scope and implications of organized retailing in the context of Kerala. Retailing industry is one of the most promising segments in the state. However, very large retail formats are at infancy stage. This paper attempts to identify major factors that determine growth of retail industry in the state. The study identifies economic growth, favorable demography, consumption pattern, urbanization and employment pattern as the key drivers of retail growth in the state. Based on a household survey conducted at Cochin, five factors attracting customers were extracted - Product Attributes, Reliability, Added Services, Value for Money and Customer Facilities, using factor analysis. Retails stores usually attracts consumers mainly due to three reasons - price, service and quality. This study observes that people are more concerned on quality and service factors than price while comparing organized retail shops with unorganized one.

Impact of Organized Retail on the Purchase of Fresh Food Items: A Comparative Analysis of Organized and Unorganized Retail

Competitiveness and search for profits have called more attention towards customer satisfaction and increased researcher's interest on the topic of service quality. In this context, this research paper applies SERVQUAL for assessing service quality in a retail industry. The main objective is to assess quality service dimensions that are hindering the growth of organized retailing of fresh food items in India. This work was performed in two hundred shops, including Subhiksha outlets, located throughout the NCR in the month of July-august 2008. A questionnaire was developed based on the service quality dimensions, the customers for gathering data from which results was analyzed. The results of this study show the tangible, empathy, responsiveness and assurance quality dimensions and characteristics that call customer attention.

A Field Study on Opportunities and Challenges Faced by Organized Retailers in Tri-CityA Field Study on Opportunities and Challenges Faced by Organized Retailers in Tri-City

Retailing involves understanding the customers, their needs and expectations. Satisfying customer's expectations while maintaining wafer-thin margins is a heroic task for most of the retailers. Indian retail is still in the infancy stage, with the retail revolution and there are a number of challenge factors which need to be overcome and a number of opportunity factors which need to be leveraged upon, if organized retailing is to flourish the way it ideally should. According to Knight Frank research report, Tri-city is an emerging market for organised retail. Good connectivity at domestic and global level, lower operational cost and easy availability of skilled labor, higher disposable incomes and lavish lifestyle has put organised retail on an upswing in the region. However, with little scope left for further development within the region, skyrocketing property prices and diluted peripheral control act placed on the outskirts, there are numerous challenges in the development or organised retail. This field study is done for identifying the opportunities and challenges faced by organized retailers in the tri-city (Chandigarh - Panchkula - Mohali) region. It was found that organized retailers see competition from the unorganized sector as their biggest challenge, followed by competition between organized retailers and the inefficiency of distribution channels, internal logistical problem and retail shrinkage, while unorganized retailers see organized retailing as their major challenge, followed by cost of operation, logistical problem, competition with other kirana retailers and inefficient distribution channels. It was also found that organized retailers see growing middle class as their greatest opportunity followed by large number of earning youth customers. The tri-city region has people from all over India having proportionate increase in spending with earnings and India's booming economy. Thus, the study found that the major challenges as well as opportunities of organized and unorganized retail are almost the same. This means that mitigating the challenges and leveraging on the opportunities could benefit both sectors.

Measurement of Consumer's Perception of Service Quality in Organized Retail Using Servqual Instrument

Retail sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world today. India is seeing a growth of about 15-25 percent per annum in its retail business. The government is also looking forward to open up foreign direct investment in the Indian retail industry. The paradigm shift in Indian retail industry can be accounted to many factors; the growth of Indian economy, the change in consumer's attitude, the increase in per capita income and overall household income, and the influence of western culture, being a few of them. These factors have led to a major change in the buying habits and purchasing behavior of the Indian consumers and thus the retail industry has become one of the key industries to look forward to in the coming years. Many corporates are looking forward to enter the organized retail segment, seeing the enormous growth potential there. But despite the big players entering the retail sector, and the boom in retail industry, organized retailing in India can be still said to be in a very nascent state. People still do not find it very convenient to go to a mall to shop for their daily needs and the local general store or kirana shop is preferred for daily shopping. This paper tries to analyze the service quality gap between the expected and delivered service of the organized retail stores in Lucknow. The aim of this paper is to find out whether the organized retail stores are actually performing according to customers expectations or are there any gaps between the expected and perceived service quality. This assessment of difference between expected and perceived service quality would be done with the help of the SER VQUAL instrument.