A local chain may have cracked the Indian consumer

TO FIND A crowd on a Sunday, in many parts of the world you go to a church—or perhaps a football match. In Thane, a suburb of Mumbai, the place to find hordes of people on the Sabbath is at the local branch of DMart, a supermarket chain. Hundreds of people argue and jostle in the aisles over bargains. As bags of sugar, lentils and rice are picked off the lower shelves by shoppers, men carrying ladders push through and clamber up to the higher ones where boxes of fresh supplies are stored. In the walls a few air-conditioners struggle against the intense heat.

Supermarkets in India are rare, accounting for just 2% of food sales; most people shop at open-air markets or in tiny local shops. Dmart is giving many Indians their first-ever feeling of shopping at one big store. “The prices are low and the quality is good,” says Shekhar Raman, who works at a bank, as he joins a long queue of bag-laden people waiting for rickshaws.