Abstract

                                Retail sector in India is at the crossroads today. A shift between organized and unorganized retail sector is apparent, especially in the vegetable, fruits and groceries retailing zone. The channel conflict arises when the channel partners such as manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, etc compete against each other for the common sale with the same brand. The small retailers are affected by this conflict. The study was undertaken in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu with aim to assess channel conflicts from various interactions with the small store retailers. The Factor analysis is used to analyze interrelationship among a large number of variable and to variables regarding their common underlying dimensions. The result showed that, six variables under factor coercive source of power explained 67.17 per cent of total variance. Therefore six factors, using factor analysis were identified as main reasons for conflict between small retailers-vendors and small retailers-customers.

Key words : Retail industry, Channel conflict, Small retailer and Factor analysis