12 Million

India has no less than 12 million little mom-and pop shops. They dominate the Indian market (accounting for 9 of every 10 rupees, or 14 of every 15 cents, generated from sales) and are present in every town, village and slum in the form of simple fruit carts, tobacco stands and closet-sized general stores. Don’t be fooled by their size, they are surprisingly streamlined and efficient. Their rental costs are low and most of their employees are family members.

They may not have rows and rows of air conditioned shopping space for you to browse but they will deliver what you want to your door within minutes. They also represent a powerful lobby that will stand up and complain whenever a big chain store is succeeding at taking their business.

10%

Thanks to the sad state of India’s ports, railways and roads and its lack of a cold supply chain, delivering things in the country is surprisingly expensive. Indian retailers spend about 10% of their sales on logistics alone. That compares to just 5% around the globe PwC said.

“In comparison to the rest of the world, Indian retail supply chain is underdeveloped and is one of the major obstacles in achieving profitable growth,” said the report.

$1,500

Retail space is not cheap in India. On average, the better retail spaces cost around $1,500 a square meter a year to lease in Delhi and Mumbai. That isn’t New York prices but double the cost of retail spaces in many other emerging Asian megacities including Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, according to figures from the report.

That cost eats away at profit as well. Real-estate costs account for around 5% to 9% of revenues at Indian retailers as compared with only 3% to 4% of revenues globally, the report said.

13%

Only around 13% of Indians have smartphones. The PwC report says this could represent a big opportunity because online retail is going to grow as more Indians get smartphones and so become much more likely to shop online. However the problem is that that the smartphone holders are also likely the same Indians that already do most of the shopping at modern retail outlets. It’s possible that they will shop less in brick and mortar stores as they shop more online. Indeed, the PwC report said bricks and mortar retailers picked disruption from online rivals as one of their biggest concerns.

27 out of 1,000 rupees

Indian retailers lose between 2.2% and 2.7% of value to what the industry calls “shrinkage” otherwise known as theft or loss. While that only means about 27 rupees out of a thousand, the loss eats directly into profit margins. It is also around twice the shrinkage rate in the rest of the world, the PwC report said.