Bengaluru is best for high street shopping with four top spots, but Delhi’s Khan Market charges highest rent, shows study

India’s start-up capital Bengaluru has the best of high streets for shopping with four of its markets – MG Road, Commercial Street, Brigade Road and Church Street – making it to Knight Frank India’s annual list of top 10 retail streets in India. 

While Bengaluru’s MG Road occupied the top slot, Somajiguda in Hyderabad, Linking Road in Mumbai and South Extension in Delhi bagged the next three sports, respectively, according to the study released on Wednesday by the global real estate consultancy in India for 30 high streets across the top eight markets. 

The study pointed out that the top ten high streets are those that are convenient in terms of access, parking facilities and with a varied assortment of retailers. The layout and master planning of the high street define the visibility.  

Inward looking markets like Khan Market (Delhi) and DLF Galleria (Gurugram) scored very low, whereas markets aligned along the access road like MG Road (Bengaluru), Somajiguda (Hyderabd), Linking Road (Mumbai), Anna Nagar in Chennai, Park Street and Camac Street in Kolkata scored high.  

Ahmedabad and Pune do not house any of the top 10 high streets.  

Contrary to common perception, the top high streets are not the ones demanding the highest rent. New Delhi’s Khan Market, Gurugram’s DLF Galleria, and Mumbai’s Linking Road and Turner Road are three high streets in the country where retailers have to shell out hefty rents to maintain brand presence. 

“Customer experience is the key and due to their traditional nature, high streets often fail to provide amenities like those of shopping centres. However, as cities in India are modernising, we see many high streets in the country reviving as facilities like access, parking, store visibility etc. have improved. Our estimations say that the average per square meter revenues of high streets will be significantly higher than those of malls in FY 2023–24. Going forward, we expect that high streets provide a good retailing experience to customers to see a revival even as other formats of retail continue to thrive,” said Shishir Baijal, Chairman & Managing Director at Knight Frank India. 

The survey was conducted across 30 high streets across the top eight cities of India based on parameters that determine the quality of experience high streets provide to customers.  This ranking study is part of Knight Frank India’s flagship annual retail report ‘Think India Think Retail 2023 - High Street Real Estate Outlook’ in association with Phygital Retail Convention 2023.