I read a recent news piece, which stated that the Government was open to idea of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Multi Brand Retail. What they are looking at before they give a nod for the FDI in Multi Brand Retail is the full fledged investment in wholesale trading. The rule book on what constitutes or defines ‘Wholesale trading’ has also been spelt out by the Government.

On a recent visit abroad, while waiting at the airport, a thought triggered in my mind on how airport retailing has evolved over the past few years. It seems like airport retailing is heating up as a retail destination with retailers. From food to clothes, you now have a variety to choose from.

Heading for office we often like to grab a coffee and while buying it, if we spot another brand selling cookies or sandwiches, the urge to have a complete meal comes to our mind. This is the advantage that co-branding brings across for its customers. Retailers’ theses days are working around developing co-branded outlets to enhance and entice their customers and also attract the ones that are not yet on their customer base.

SMEs play a vital role for the growth the country’s economy. They contribute 45% of the industrial output, 40% of exports, 42 million in employment, create one million jobs every year and produce more than 8000 products for the Indian and international markets. This is what one hears at most of the conferences for small and medium businesses and the same is said by most of the studies released at such conferences.

The main idea which defines character licensing is the way a character is interpreted in accordance with the prevalent market scenario. There revolves a story around every character and people eventually relate to it thereby giving headway to licensing. Licensing opportunities provide brand owners to leverage on the popularity of a character at the same time the property owner (in this case it is the character developer) to spin money from this secondary channel. “Unlike previous times, today there are ample of cartoon characters and the number increases day by day.