AS hypermarkets have "mushroomed" and "killed off" many small grocery stores, the president of the Federation of Sundry Goods Merchants Association hopes that the government will provide greater "protection" for them. Certainly, as the steep decline in the association's membership from 50,000 to 20,000 attests, many have been forced to close down -- not only as a result of the entry of foreign hypermarkets but also of local supermarket chains. Competition from convenience stores, medicine shops and night markets has also taken away some of their business. To be sure, as the big stores don't open in remote rural areas, these are still the turf of the kedai runcit. Nevertheless, it is a global trend, and not only a Malaysian phenomenon, that it has become a struggle for smaller family-owned independent grocery shops to survive. They have not been able to keep up with the big chains that buy in bulk and sell a wide variety of products at prices they can't match. What is clear is that the vulnerable grocers operating on the margins will need all the help they can get to stay in business.
However, if by "protection" the association's president means restrictions on the growth and expansion of the mammoth retailers, he's likely to be disappointed. Certainly, the number and size of the superstores that can be opened in a single locality will continue to be regulated. Under the Economic Transformation Programme, these will be made on the basis of "demand assessments that look into the needs, economic capability and population base of the residents". But as the target of the retail National Key Economic Area is to set up 61 hyperstores, 163 superstores and 356 supermarkets, rather than seeking to restrict their growth, the goal is to "strive to expand the number of large format stores".
Moreover, rather than focusing on protecting them, the government is zooming in on supporting the sundry shops to modernise their operations and management. The fact is that, even in large cities, geography still makes it convenient to shop at the neighbourhood store when the sugar or the soap runs out. There's ample room for both the big stores and the small shops in the retail market. That said, however, when it comes to product displays, bright spaces and efficient services, supersized modern stores have raised the bar, and the traditional sundry shop has to evolve to compete for the attention and patronage of contemporary consumers. The challenge for the sundry shops is to make over with a brand new look and become recognisably different from what they used to be.
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