Organized retail businesses in India are reeling under the impact of recession, which has, not only hit the global market, but also the Indian retail sector. This article attempts to review various studies and reports on different aspects of the effect of recession on the organized retail business in India. The problem areas have been highlighted and suitable solutions provided. These solutions would enable the retail business to combat recession and take the much needed path to recovery.

The word retail is derived from the French word `retaillier' meaning to cut a piece off or to break bulk. Retailing includes all the activities involved in selling goods or services directly to the final consumers for personal, non-business use. A retailer or retail store is any business enterprise whose sales volume comes primarily from retailing. Any organization selling to final consumers (including final consumption by manufacturers, distributors, etc.) is doing retailing (Kotler and Keller, 2006). Retailing involves a direct interface with the customer and the coordination of business activities from end-to-end, including delivery and post-delivery service to the customers (Vedmani GG, 2008).

Retail business can be clearly demarcated into: Organized and unorganized. Organized retailing is still evolving in India, with its share being only 4% of total retailing. The organized retail business has been hit hard by recession, due to various problems, like drop in consumer spending and shift from spending for leisure to value-based purchases. The change in the consumer spending pattern has also had an adverse impact on shopping malls, with footfall declining and with every major player trying out new strategies to sail through this downslide.

Retailing is a big business in developed countries and is concentrated predominantly in the organized sector. The retail sector in the US, amounts to $9 tn, and is the world's largest. 47 of the global Fortune 500 companies and 25 of Asia's top 200 companies are retailers. The share of the organized sector in retailing in various countries/regions is as follows: Western Europe – 70%, Malaysia and Thailand – 50%, Brazil and Argentina – 40%, Philippines – 35%, Indonesia – 25% and South Korea – 15%. The organized sector commands around 80% of the total retailing business in the US, Japan and some West European countries. Retailing is a significant contributor to the overall economic activity world over. The retail sector's share in world GDP is 27%, while in the US, it accounts for 22% of the GDP.

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