The evolution of the British Asian community in this country is one that has been examined many times. But today we bring a new angle to consider, one of the power of the community through its retail and purchasing power.
In 1498, when Vasco da Gama opened a direct maritime route between South Asia and Europe. Many South Asians travelled to Europe by sea in the next century as sailors, slaves and servants.
The earliest known Asians in Britain were the Lascars in the 17th century, who were employed by the East India Company as they travelled the world and plundered its riches. Among the most eminent early Bengali Muslim migrants to England was Sake Dean Mahomet, a captain of the British East India Company who founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House in 1810.
The story of the Asian migration we know today started Post-World War II the immigration of Asians was continuous, though several distinct phases can be identified. In the aftermath of World War workers were brought to address the labour shortage that resulted from the War. These included Anglo-Indians who were recruited to work on the railways as they had done in India. The workers who predominantly came in the 1950s and 60s, mainly from Punjab and Gujarat arrived from India and worked in the foundries of the English Midlands. Sikhs coming to London either migrated to the East to set up businesses where the wholesale, retail and manufacturing elements of the textile industry were located. Many Sikhs moved to West London and took up employment at Heathrow airport and the associated industries around it, otherwise known as Southall.
At the same period, the then newly formed National Health Service appointed a large number of medical staff from India. Indian’s were particularly favoured as the British had established medical schools in the Indian subcontinent which conformed to the British standards of medical training.
During the 1960s and 1970s, a large influx of East African Indians especially Gujarati’s but also large numbers of Punjabis who already held British passports, arrived in the UK after they were expelled from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Many of these people had been store-keepers and wholesale retailers in Africa and opened shops when they arrived in the UK. As the community grew so did the requirement of providing known food, so they opened corner shops and became shopkeepers. As the community expanded and moved to other parts of the UK the need for Asian retail services increased manifold.
The Asian community which started off by doing low skilled jobs like shopkeeping, factory labour and housekeeping and cleaning jobs. Over the years they brought themselves up to doing high skilled jobs like doctors, banking, legal service, software etc, thanks to education and wealth from hard work and being thrifty.
The inexorable rise and influence of the Asian community is linked to the economy and the purchasing power among its members. In the UK, the retail sector contributes 8% of GDP. South Asians, it is said to contribute 6% to the overall UK GDP, whilst making up only 4% of the population. Other sources predict that the figure may be even higher. The Centre for Social Markets estimates that British Asian businesses contribute as much as 10% of total GDP.
Today ethnic minorities in the UK also represent a younger and growing marketplace. 80% of the Asian population are under 25 years old. Most of these second and third generation ethnic minorities are upwardly mobile with a high standard of education and disposable income. With the coming digital age, computer literacy is particularly high amongst young consumers. This suggests a high level of engagement in e-commerce otherwise known as ‘e-tail’, success in the future as they get older.
British Asians are not just hardworking and inspirational, however, they are also economically a significant force, as backed up by research. For example, ethnic minority consumers are three times more likely to own a BMW than the population in general and twice as likely to own a Mercedes-Benz, according to Starfish Research. Accounting for a twelfth of fashion spending, with continued net inward migration, British Asians will continue to grow in numbers as will the group’s spending power.
For example, British Asian consumers are keen purchasers of hi-tech products with their ownership of laptops, digital cameras and iPods/MP3 players being above the national average, making them an important consumer group for manufacturers of hi-tech goods. The same applies to mobile phones, where there are high levels of mobile phone ownership amongst ethnic minority groups, especially smartphones.
Keeping this in mind advertisers and major brands are eager to target this high-income disposable generation of the Asians. The ‘one-size fits all’ approach to advertising communication is no longer adequate for brands to effectively build awareness and trust amongst ethnic minorities. A report has revealed that almost half of all ethnic minority groups would take more notice of advertising if it included someone from their own ethnic minority group, particularly so for Asians. The diversity of the group ensures major companies come up with culturally creative ways to advertise. Supermarkets, for example, have special offers and unique promotions especially during Diwali, Eid, Vaisakhi and other South Asian festivals.
The advent of the internet and other modern technology has fundamentally changed the retail sector. The ‘e-tail’ experience is propagated by millennials—those born roughly between 1978 and 1995— who are already shaping the consumer experience with everything done online with the help of smartphones and tablets. Today’s consumers want emails, alerts, product suggestions, which they can filter and sort according to the preferences they care about. Consumers also engage in “Showrooming”, when people enter a store to try a product but then buy product online for cheaper. The applies mainly for clothes and fashion.
The advent of online shopping has led to retailers also benefiting. The rise of e-commerce, mobile, and social are all leading up to the biggest development retailers have seen ever, the emergence of big data. For the first time, we have technology that can collect and analyse the data generated by consumers with every click and even physical movements in stores. Retailers of the future will have the ability to target and personalise their marketing campaigns based on data about customer preferences, behaviours, lifestyles, and real-time locations. For example, Argos discovered that 1.6 million pieces of customer content could be fed back into their business decisions to improve both the customer experience and the bottom line. Argos now uses online customer reviews to gauge the level of dissatisfaction with products customers might not have bothered to return.