As the experts don't tire of telling us, the retail boom is here to stay. The sub-text to this statement is that organised retail is now moving further outward from the metros and bringing the Tier II and III cities too into the ambit of operations. The action is not solely limited to the bigger centers of the western region like Mumbai and Pune, but is fast moving down to places like Nashik, Nagpur, Surat, Baroda, Aurangabad and, of course, Ahmedabad and all of Goa.

According to Knight Frank Research, of the total organised retail space being developed pan-India, 35 percent is to come up in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Knight Frank Research also indicates that of the total 361 mall projects currently underway in India, 227 are in the top seven cities while the rest 134 are distributed over various Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

Besides new malls, close to 35 hypermarkets, 325 large department stores and over 10,000 new outlets are also under development. Growth in rural population and increase in agricultural incomes also offers considerable scope for innovative retail formats like ITC's E-choupal initiatives, or even Hamara pump, HPCL's rural outlets which are convenient refill points and have shops that sell fertilisers, seeds and agricultural tools.

In the metros of the western region like Mumbai or Pune, the total retail activity is staggering with the western region second only to the NCR in hectic development activity. Within Mumbai, the elite south Mumbai belt is getting edged out by upcoming locations in far-flung Thane and Navi Mumbai, apart from the western and central suburb regions like Andheri or Mulund respectively. Industry watchers have compiled a list of approximately 70 malls (or developments approaching that nomenclature) that are in various stages of launch or completion. Pune is close behind with an amazing 40+ such projects, either in the pipeline or approaching completion. This kind of activity in just two cities will give an indication of how far reaching are the effects of the retail boom.

Ashutosh Limaye of Trammel Crow Meghraj says, "Any retail scenario is perforce dependent on the residential catchment available in the area. With the IT and ITES sectors going into the smaller centers to take advantage of lower overheads, the retail sector will naturally get a fillip. Nagpur is fast becoming a logistic and cargo development hub, Nashik is getting a lot of second home buyers from Mumbai apart from the primary agro based development of the winery industry. All of these reasons are the drivers for developers investing in these cities. Of course the most basic reason for developers shifting focus here is the availability of cheap land. Also the infrastructure here is probably more able to cope with such demands made on it, than the already overburdened infrastructure of the metros. "