Corporate lawyer Archana Singh travels to Europe every year and returns laden with fine Italian cheeses, French wines and single-malt Scottish whiskeys. At home in Mumbai, she likes shopping at the neighborhood “dollar store,” which sells exotic products like the newest flavor of Pringles in red-white-and-blue decked aisles that make her feel she’s on vacation in the U.S.
As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other retail giants prepare to enter India, an unexpected American rival — California’s My Dollarstore Inc. is already here and attracting the affluent middle-class customers Wal-Mart and others covet.
In the U.S., most of the so-called dollar stores that sell discounted products at a single price are in low-rent strip malls. In India, My Dollarstores target big spenders, setting up in prime ground-floor spaces at the newest malls. Even the prices are higher end. While everything costs $1 at My Dollarstores in the U.S., in India the same products sell for 99 rupees, or about $2, thanks to transportation costs and import tariffs.
Since opening its first store in Mumbai in 2004, India’s My Dollarstore franchise has been a testing ground for what works — and what doesn’t — for a new entrant to the subcontinent’s nearly $300 billion retail industry spanning food to footwear.
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