INTRODUCTION:

The customary idea of physical buying among consumers has changed into crossover encounters^1,17. With the ascending of mobile shopping and internet business, the presentation of brilliant innovations and action plans for the consumer is basic to drive the digital world. A race has begun towards digital closeness to remain ahead in the advancing retail industry. In this customer-fixated world, the force shift from store-based configurations to digital channels is extending the communications domain, driving commitment and transformations^11,4. Digital promoting, request detecting, cautious recharges, and maker online activity stages assist with pushing quickly and remaining ahead of the competition. Also, the conventional store names have acquainted multichannel procedures with impact on customer purchasing conduct to support business in the changing business sector situation¹⁶.

Now, retail industry is being considered to reach at matured stage with growing Indian economy^2,5. It has been noticed that customers feel better in shopping with big retail stores as compared to traditional one²⁵. Market liberalization and dynamic changes in buyer’s behavior have forced retailers to do some transformation in their operations^3,15. The retail revolution, which has been witnessed, will finally transform the Indian retail sector and economy²³. The retail sector of country offers good opportunities to jaunt retailers to set-up their operations²⁶.

Digital change is not another idea, with each industry going digital to work on their administrations and offices to remain on the ball. In the retail business, digital change is an omnichannel driving experience, which takes care of the customer need and assumption through more limited capacities to focus on moment satisfaction, customized pop-up message, the altered proposal by determining market patterns, critical examination, area-based marketing and expectant delivery for satisfaction comforts with an incorporated perspective on consumer practices^19,21. This and the need to find inventive ways of driving income and make dramatic plans of action are variables to present advancements in the digital change venture for an endeavour. Information-driven A.I. powers experiences and choices. It is tied in with thinking past minimal upgrades, where laying out drawing in offices utilizing innovation is brought to the front^10,18. A study was undertaken to understand the competitive edge of medium-sized retailers (turnover Rs.10 crores to Rs. 50 crores) due to digitalization. One hundred ten such retailers from Bengaluru were surveyed, and their view on the competitive edge of digitization to their business was ascertained. Digitalization assists all the organizations to form the base for not only the knowledge but also value management^5,22.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Digitalization has changed a few ventures during the last twenty years. In this paper, the writers centre around the retail area, where new plans of action assist retailers and providers with meeting the steadily changing and demanding requirements of retail customers²⁰. One illustration of this plan of action development is multi-sided digital stages, which have become famous as they associate consumers with providers from around the world with a vast environment to help the retail setting. This paper aims to outline how multi-sided digital stages are changing the retail trade rationale and evaluate the ramifications and effect of these stages put together organizations concerning the retail area, particularly for business chiefs and consumers¹². The discoveries recommend that settings change the exchange rationale of retailing as they just transitional exchanges among purchasers and providers rather than taking care of the whole stock and planned operations chain. The writers feature the job of consumer understanding and Big Data as one illustration of how multi-sided digital stages separate from their non-stage rivals^14,8.

Today, perpetually, consumers are acting unexpectedly: To buy specific items they don't go close to a physical store, and assuming they do enter a store, they are frequently informed that a representative has little help to add. It's generally expected that consumers widely peruse online before buying, taking a gander at item evaluations and audits, as on Idealo or Yelp or at producers' sites. An ever-increasing number of them purchase online quickly - at Amazon, for example, or a maker's web-based store. As an outcome, concentrated outsiders take over other already retailer-bound exercises. DHL and different transporters coordinate actual distribution, and the transaction is done through Pay Pal or charge cards^24,19.

Firms in numerous areas are fusing data innovation accomplices to acquire digital capacities, work on their tasks, and deal with new incentives. The organization of digitalization in grounded firms from conventional areas empowers the making of explicit vital collusions (concentric) with I.T. suppliers. In any case, laying out these specific essential partnerships with an I.T. supplier raises pressures and reexaminations both at the inward level and inside the union due to the significant authoritative difficulties that both digitalization and an essential coalition suggest. This study investigates what digitalization means for developing these new essential collusions, featuring the interaction and critical factors that have added to its prosperity at our unit of study in the retailing area^7,27.

The point of this paper is to analyze and conceptualize how joining cell phones is reconfiguring the retail spaces of stores and the ramifications that this has for retailers and consumers. Leaving from a comprehension of retail spaces as socio-material gatherings and drawing on an ethnographic investigation of versatile shopping, this paper shows how the reconciliation of cell phones into the exercises of in-store shopping is reconfiguring the way store space is established. The coordination of this digital gadget redesigns the shopping practices, and new information spaces, social spaces and experience spaces are unfurled. Simultaneously, stores are reconfigured, organizations change, and consumer and retailers' connections are revamped⁶.

A positive relationship has been found between store image and variables of customer behavior i.e. purchase making decisions, purchase intention, make a purchase, impulse purchase, frequency to visit, time spend in store, maintain customer interest, store choice, store satisfaction, store revisit, positive word of mouth, life style, attitude, benefits, leanings, perception, and motivation²¹. Visual merchandising plays a vital role in retailing²².

Advancement and improvement of retail depend on authentic financial patterns deciding the development of an item flow framework. Change of boundaries of retail and mechanical activities of retailers under states of financial matters digitalization makes issues of investigation of the board design of retail undertakings important. Dissemination of advancements still up in the air by the retail size and layout of item course circle structure the reason for the change of business processes. The principal factors deciding advancement improvement of retail are the following: business solidification, level of advancement in the nation and on the planet, serious circumstance, venture environment state, institutional and authoritative guidelines, and utilization culture. The determinants of retail progress and improvement decide fundamental vital bearings of retail and innovative frameworks that ought to incorporate informatization, customization and reconciliation. Coupling crucial bearings of advancement and improvement of retail with essential rivalry methodologies empower retail mechanical frameworks to design presentation of hierarchical, showcasing, instructive, mechanical developments moving toward target upper hands^9,13.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

A short survey questionnaire was prepared and was circulated amongst retailers with a turnover in the range of Rs.10 crores to Rs.50 crores. The questionnaire had the following ten statements:

· Digitalization has opened up more markets.

· Digitalization has facilitated online transactions.

· Digitalization has helped in times like covid-19.

· Digitalization has facilitated business operations.

· Digitalization has helped the distribution of products.

· Digitalization has created a favourable impression in the minds of the customers.

· Digitalization has helped to improve supply chain management.

· Digitalization has helped to seek institutional customers.

· Digitalization has helped in reducing costs.

· Digitalization has increased customer loyalty.

Likert scales were used for response options. The response options were - 0 - Can't Say, 1 - Somewhat agree, 2 - Completely agree, 3 - Somewhat Disagree, 4 - Completely Disagree. Responses were received from 110 retailers. The questionnaire was tested for reliability and returned a Cronbach Alpha score of 0.786 and hence was considered reliable. The following hypotheses were formulated:

· Ho: Digitalization has not given a significant competitive edge to retailers.

· Ha: Digitalization has given a significant competitive edge to retailers.

The hypothesis was tested based on the average agreement/disagreement responses to the ten questionnaire statements. The average agreement/disagreement response of the 110 respondents for all the ten statements was taken as the sample mean. It was compared with a hypothesized population mean of 50% agreement/disagreement connoting an event by chance and not due to any statistical significance. A t-test was applied at a 95% confidence level and based on the p-value, the null hypothesis was tested for rejection or non-rejection.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

106 out of the 110 respondent retailers were male, while 4 were female. 26 were <40 years of age, 42 were in the age group of 40-50 years, and 42 were >50 years of age. 15 had a business standing of < 5 years, 45 had a business standing of 5-10 years, and 50 had a business standing of >10 years. The average agreement responses to the questionnaire were as under:

Table 1: Summary of responses to the questionnaire

Statement	Agreement %
1	84%
2	85%
3	79%
4	82%
5	76%
6	77%
7	91%
8	75%
9	82%
10	84%
Average	82%

Based on the above summary average sample mean, the hypothesis was tested as under:

Table 2: Testing of Hypothesis

Parameter	Value
Sample Mean (x̄)	82%
Hypothesized population mean (μ)	50%
S.D. of sample	0.84652
n (sample size)	110
t-value=abs((x̄ - μ) / (s/√n))	3.90274
p-value =tdist(t,(n-1),1)	0.00008
Decision	Null is not accepted

Thus, the null hypothesis digitalization has not given a significant competitive edge to retailers was not accepted in favour of the alternate digitalization has given a significant competitive edge to retailers.

CONCLUSION:

Digitalization has given a significant competitive edge to retailers. They have expressed comprehensive agreement to statements like digitalization has opened up more markets, digitalization has facilitated online transactions, digitalization has helped in times like Covid-19, digitalization has encouraged business operations, digitalization has supported distribution of products, digitalization has created a favourable image in the minds of the customers, digitalization has helped to improve supply chain management, digitalization has helped to seek institutional customers, digitalization has helped in reducing costs and digitalization has increased customer loyalty. Findings suggest that those who have adopted digitalization have gained a significant competitive edge over others who have failed to do so or have been slow in adopting digitalization. The message for retailers is thus quite clear – stay digital and stay ahead in the competition.

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Received on 30.06.2022 Modified on 17.11.2022

Asian Journal of Management. 2023;14(2):129-132.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5763.2023.00020