Walmart’s first store in India will be a wholesale store more along the lines of SAMS Club, largely targetted at wholesale buyers, aka, businesses and establishments. [Time]

Wal-Mart’s debut outlet, which will open in the city of Amritsar in northern India later this month, is a wholesale-only operation that will sell mainly to vegetable vendors, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and other companies.

Largely to bypass India’s restrictive commercial laws and to keep a low profile from politicians and activists, Walmart won’t even go by it’s own name. The store will be called “BestPrice Modern Wholesale” which basically sounds like a conglomeration of buzzwords, which begs the question why not “CostEffective Futuristic VolumeSales”?

Most invasions are preceded by some sort of reconnaissance missions. Walmart has been preparing for its India campaign for a few years now.

in anticipation of its India launch, Wal-Mart for the last three years has been developing a network of suppliers to stock its stores with fresh produce and staples like lentils, wheat and rice — all with an appreciation for variations in local cultures and tastes. “India is not a homogenous market, so ours is not a cookie-cutter approach from the U.S.,” says Raj Jain, president of Wal-Mart India.

Why not just go ahead and open dozens if not hundreds of stores all over India? Over the past few years, local companies like Reliance and Birla have opened up hundreds of stores to head off Walmart’s impending threat but Walmart is happy to play the waiting game given the current economic scenario.

Although other foreign hypermarket chains are entering the country — British retail group Tesco has a joint venture with India’s giant Tata conglomerate, while France’s Carrefour is said to be in talks with Reliance — Jain says Wal-Mart is in no hurry to unfurl the Wal-Mart flag nationally. “The easiest thing is to roll out stores, but the most difficult is to sustain and feed them,” he says.

Will their waiting game pay off? only time will tell. But currently non-business customers in India will not be able to socialize in Walmart’s electronics aisle like their brethren in the US do.

Looks like you are one of our regular visitors. Here is our RSS feed, just another way to keep up with the new posts.