Kolkata, Jul 30 (PTI) Hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional format of the FMCG trade in metros has lost around seven per cent market share to modern retail and e- commerce in a year, according to a study of a market research firm.

The traditional trade has a 65 per cent share of the Rs 4 lakh crore FMCG market during the April-June period of 2020, down by 7.2 per cent from 72.2 per cent in the year-ago period, the Nielsen FMCG Snapshot Q2 2020 said.

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The traditional trade involves a network of small retailers, dealers, stockists and wholesalers and distributors and serves localised customer demand, while modern trade is large format stores and chains.

According to the study, the modern trade, which had a 21.8 per cent market share in the April-June period of 2019, now has 26.4 per cent by end of the corresponding quarter this year.

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The e-commerce segment, which had a share of six per cent of total FMCG sales in the quarter, has gained to 8.6 per cent, it said.

Maintaining social distancing norms and technology adoption will be the biggest challenge, the report said.

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(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)