Case Study: Avenue Supermarts vs Future Retail, Two Retail Strategies

A head-to-head case study of two Indian retailers that chased the same middle-class grocery shopper and ended up at opposite ends of the market. Avenue Supermarts (DMart) owned its stores, kept prices low every day, paid suppliers fast and funded growth from its own cash. Future Retail (Big Bazaar) leased aggressively, ran mega sales, stretched working capital and funded expansion with debt and promoter pledges. This course puts the two models side by side, metric by metric: store economics, pricing, inventory turns, working capital, capital allocation and return on capital employed, then shows how each handled demonetisation, GST and Covid. You finish with a reusable comparative scorecard you can run on screener.in against any listed Indian retailer. Written for experienced retail investors, mutual fund investors and salaried professionals who want to judge business quality, not just stock price.