With online shopping becoming increasingly popular, brick and mortar retailers are having a difficult time. Most top of the line players—Shopper’s Stop, Trent and Arvind Limited—have struggled to grow profits in the last three years. Just how tough the going has been can be seen from the fact that in the three months to March, Shoppers Stop reported a same store sales growth of just 3.1% year-on-year. In fact, FY17 turned to be a tepid affair for the retailer which has been in the business for over 15 years; it reported an increase in net sales of just 3.4% at Rs4,910.14 crore.