Retail News - expansion and consolidation on the cards

After a brief lull to take stock, the retail biggies are back in action announcing big and bigger plans to expand and consolidate. Sometime ago we had focused on how luxury and high-end retail is a segment to watch out for. The past few weeks have had more news of big international brands planning a foray in India, either through Indian firms bringing in these brands or through single brand stores.

-Chillibreeze Business Research Team

General Plans and Information

Organised retail to capture 25 pc market by 2011

In a surprise finding that organised retail is growing faster than expected in India, a study has forecast that this segment could account for a quarter of the total retail revenues by 2011 from the current 8 per cent share.

The study has been done by accounting firm Deloitte Haskins and Sells. India’s retail industry, both organised and unorganised, is worth $295 billion at present. A February study by Mumbai-based brokerage Edelweiss Capital had said that organised retail would form 15 per cent of the retail sales by March 2011 from 4.1 per cent now. But Deloitte’s study says that organised retail grew at a scorching pace in 2007, going to 8 per cent of total retail sales from 5 per cent in 2006.

New stores, more spending power and access to credit had led to organised retail’s 50 per cent growth in 2007, said Shyamak Tata, partner at Deloitte who did the research.
Several large retailers including US-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc and UK’s Marks and Spencer Plc have announced plans for the Indian market, spurred by this explosive growth. But organised retail’s march has been checked to some extent by protests from India’s small retailers, who form the backbone of retail in India—in the dominantly unorganised sector. They argue that large retailers would gain market share at their expense. Some retailers scaled back plans in the face of opposition from small retailers and legislation in some states that large retailers would have to pay a tax on food and grocery sold in their stores or a share in their profits.

Deloitte’s estimates suggest that organised retail is still set to explode. Deloitte’s estimates, to be released at a retail conference on Thursday, are pegged to the amount of retail space coming up in the country. Retailers have bought or will buy around 316 million sq. ft of retail space, several times the 68 million sq. ft of space they took up in 2006. For this investment in space to pay off, the industry would have to grow at around 50 per cent or so, Tata said. "If retail continues to grow at this pace, the malls will get used,” he said. “If not, then rentals will get affected."

May 12, 2008
Source: Hindustan Times

‘Retail to drive fruit, veggies’

The organised and traditional retail sector will ultimately drive the growth of the fruits and vegetable sector in the country, according to a study conducted by the YES Bank and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

The study said that the organised retail chains were opening up huge opportunities for connecting up fruits and vegetables value chains to ultimate consumers with value addition. It called for appropriate policy support for the growth of retail chains in the country.

The YES Bank-CII study said, “the fruits and vegetables (F&V) sector, given its very nature, is completely dependant on and driven by consumer choices and demand pull for fresh and processed products. Therefore, the sector's growth will not be determined by production alone but by the extent of value addition and link up to the market.”

The growth of food processing industry was critical for the growth of F&V sector, it said and added initiative like setting up of mega food parks was a welcome step.

A massive surge in production as well as the significant demand shift at global and domestic consumer segments from traditional to high value crops led by growth in disposal income and the growth of the middle class has collectively contributed to the demand for fruits and vegetables.

On the export front the study called for tackling issues like traceability norms, conformity with global standards and market access. Despite different types of fruits and vegetables grown, India’s export of agriculture and food products was only 1.4% of the total global trade. The study also called for minimizing pre and post harvest losses and setting up of adequate infrastructure.

May 10, 2008
Source: Financial Express

‘Retailers must focus on understanding customers’

Organised retailers in India will need far more than prime locations and competitive prices in order to succeed in what is shaping up to be a fast growing but extremely competitive retail market.

Retailers have the opportunity to develop a competitive advantage by gaining a deep understanding of their customers using robust data analytics. A new report from Diamond Management & Technology Consultants Inc contends that organised retailers need to build their data collection, storage, and analysis capabilities if they hope to win in the burgeoning Indian market.

Diamond’s report, titled Understanding the Indian Retail Customer – in Bits and Bytes! explains that India’s innovative organised retailers should leverage data-driven analytics to acquire new customers, build loyal long-term customers, and maximise customer value.

“Organised retailers in India today primarily focus on traditional building blocks such as retail space and supply chain infrastructure,” said Mr Vinod Nair, a Partner at Diamond, who leads the firm’s India practice and an author of the paper. “Consequently, these companies often overlook the need to develop a continuous understanding of the Indian customer’s preferences and buying behaviour.”

May 10, 2008
Source: Hindu Business Line

Modern Retail sector to help food processing industry

Modern Retail sector will create the right environment for the growth and development of food processing industry in the country, Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Subodh Kant Sahay, said on Saturday.

Most of the processed foods produced in the small and micro sectors in India are not properly developed and branded yet. Modern retail sector presents a ''golden'' opportunity for them to develop the branded products in a modern valued added format, the minister said in his speech, which was read in absentia at the two-day conference of Bakers Association here.

Major initiatives are being planned to energise the food processing sector in the 11th plan such as modernisation of 100 abattoirs, cold chain infrastructure and establishment of Meat Board.

To gain entrance in the International trade in food, it is necessary for the Indian food processing sector to become quality conscious and move towards attaining domestic and International quality standards, he said.

The Bakery industry in India is the largest of the food industries with an annual turnover of about rs 3000 crore. India is the second largest producer of biscuits after USA. The biscuit industry in India comprises organised and unorganised sectors.

Urging the industry to come out with variety of products, he said with product differentiation through convenient packaging, aggressive promotion and distribution, new varieties of branded biscuits can be introduced. Germany bakes 200 varieties of bread, he said.

May 10, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Regulatory concerns, high realty prices continue to dog retail sector

The Indian retail industry, estimated at about $400 billion, continues to face some regulatory challenges in the area of licenses, clearances and taxation and spurt in realty prices, according to Mr Gibsom G. Vadamani, Chief Executive Officer, Retailers Association of India.

The real estate prices have shot up in the last three-four years, requiring significantly higher investments as the retailers expand their footprint in the country. While rising real estate price is a major issue, with some retailers making investments in future expansion about 24 months ahead of their business plans, some other large format stores are turning anchor tenants, he said.

Speaking at the two-day ReTechCon hosted here, Mr Gibson said “Retailers continue to face regulatory challenges. For instance, when a retailer expands to a new State, he is required to secure licenses and about 30 clearances and (is) faced with taxation issues.”
“As an association, we believe that this needs to be simplified. We are meeting with representatives of the Government and making representations on these concerns,” he said.

May 7, 2008
Source: Hindu Business Line

Big players - plans and investments

Bharti Retail aims to consolidate presence in northern India

Bharti Retail, a recent entrant in the organised retail market, on Tuesday said before launching pan-India operations, it will focus on Punjab and then move on to consolidate its position in northern India.

"Our focus right now is Punjab and we will first consolidate our presence in North India," Bharti Retail President and CEO Vinod Sawhney told reporters on the sidelines of a CII organised retail conference.

The company has recently announced the launch of its first three food and grocery stores under the brand name 'Easy Days' in Ludhiana, Punjab. The company also plans to have bigger formats like compact medium and hypermarkets.

Asked when the other formats were expected to be rolled out, Sawhney said, the company was at present learning from the experiences of the new stores and was thus concentrating on smaller formats.

Easy Day stores offer a wide range of products ranging from items for daily usage such as personal care products to groceries such as processed foods, staples, bakery, dairy products, meat and poultry.

Sawhney said the company would also focus on private labels at the stores. "As somebody who is entering the retail market we will be looking at private labels also," he said.

The company, which has a JV with Wal-Mart for cash-and- carry operations and a franchisee agreement for front-end retail, aims to spend USD 2.5 billion by 2015 for opening multiple format stores. The company is expected to open its first cash-and-carry stores by the end of 2008.

May 13, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Reliance to use closed fuel outlets for malls and multiplexes

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's biggest firm by market capitalisation, is drawing up plans to convert its fuel retail outlets, which were recently closed owing to unviable operations, into malls and multiplexes.

Earmarking about Rs 5,000 crore for the project, the company is planning to develop 700 to 800 properties at important locations. The company, which is promoted by Mukesh Ambani, has also approached its fuel dealers with offers to buy out the properties they own, said sources familiar with the developments.

"About 500 properties used for the fuel retail business are owned by the Mukesh Ambani group. The remaining outlets are dealer-owned and dealer-operated. The dealers, who were incurring losses due to suspension of the retail business, have approached the company to sell their properties," company sources said.

The company is believed to be offering Rs 2 crore to Rs 4 crore for the properties and petrol pumps owned by the dealers. An additional Rs 4 crore to Rs 6 crore will be spent to construct each mall and multiplex structure.

Sources said all the Reliance Retail brands — Reliance Fresh, Reliance Footprint, Reliance Time Out, Reliance Digital, Reliance Wellness and Reliance Jewel — will find space in these malls.

For the multiplexes, the company is exploring the option of joint ventures with the founder of Adlabs Films Manmohan Shetty, Yash Raj Films and a few foreign media houses.

The company recently struck a deal with Marks & Spencer (M&S) for which it might use these properties to fulfil its commitments to the iconic UK retailer. M&S plans to open at least 50 stores in India and become a leading brand in the country's $300 billion retail sector.

May 12, 2008
Source: Business Standard

HyperCity Retail to focus on big box and multi-channel format

HyperCity Retail, part of Mumbai-based K Raheja Corp, which also owns the Shoppers Stop chain of department stores, has called off plans to launch convenience formats, ExpressCity, announced last year. The retailer is instead shifting its growth plans to focus on the big box format and multi-channel retailing.

Officials said it made better business sense to focus on larger formats since the profit margins in convenience formats were too low. The current crop of convenience formats, including Subhiksha, Reliance Fresh and Spencers, are struggling with the challenges of operating a low-margin grocery business in the face of spiralling real estate costs, high supply-chain costs and tough competition from the traditional formats.

HyperCity CEO Andrew Levermore said: “The experiment with the convenience format has been put on the back burner for now. It is clear that the HyperCity format delivers greater returns than the small formats in the retail space, so we have decided to expand HyperCity. We may revisit the small convenience format experiment at some point in the future.”

Currently, the company is accelerating the roll-out of seven additional big format stores this year. Its maiden HyperCity store at Malad in Mumbai has completed two years and the company recently launched a multi-channel, catalogue and internet retailing format, HyperCity Argos. It had set up its first convenience format ExpressCity in Jaipur as a market tester.

In mid-2007, HyperCity Retail had announced plans to roll out as many as 300 smaller grocery stores in the next four years. ExpressCity was to sell vegetables, fruit and food items and the stores were estimated to be spread over 3,500-5,000 sq ft.

The company had announced plans to stock pre-cut and refrigerated fruits and vegetables, apart from refrigerated ready-to-cook food products and 12 meal options as well. After the test-launch in Jaipur, the original plan was to launch four additional stores and then work on a pan-India presence.

“Convenience stores have to be set up at prime locations and be accessible to consumers who are in any case used to the mom and pop formats which offer efficient and quick deliveries. Given the current property rates, it may not have been feasible for HyperCity to operate such stores profitably without getting the locations right,” a source said.

May 12, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Indiabulls in talks with leading global retailers

Indiabulls group, an emerging conglomerate with interests spanning from financial services to retail, on Monday said it is in talks with some leading global single-product retailers seeking a pan-India presence.

"The company is in early stages of negotiations with some leading international single-product retailers who wish to establish a pan India presence," Indiabulls Real Estate (IBREL) today said while announcing its quarterly results.

Besides its real estate business that also caters to retail players with malls and other store-formats, Indiabulls also has its own retail venture, which has department stores, hypermarket stores and neighbourhood stores.

The IBREL is presently developing 17 malls across 16 cities with a combined leasable area of about 14 million square feet. Indiabulls' hyper-market stores and department stores are likely to be the anchor tenants in these malls.

The company said it expects majority of malls to be completed and leased out by late 2009. Full payment for the land of 13 malls has already been made and these are in company's possession.

The proposed malls are coming up in cities like Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Chandigarh and Visakhapattnam. The company is expecting a monthly rental in the range of Rs 60-300 per square feet in these 17 malls.

The name of the company's retail business subsidiary, Piramyd Retail Ltd, has been changed to Indiabulls Retail Services Ltd. The Piramyd stores has been accordingly rebranded as Indiabulls Megastore and Indiabulls Mart.

The retail business currently has an operational area of 6.7 lakh square feet. During Q4, the company opened Indiabulls Megastores in New Delhi and Ahmedabad, while six new Indiabulls Mart stores became operational in the quarter.

May 12, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Reliance Retail to set up 60 iStores in 2008

Reliance Retail (RRL) is planning to set up 60 i Store — an Apple premium reseller store — across the country by 2011.

After inaugurating iStore in Jaipur — the first in North India and fourth in India after Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai — Reliance Industries (CDIT Business) CEO Ajay Baijal said that iStore would house entire range of Apple products for professional and consumer segments, such as iMac consumer desktop computers, MacBook consumer notebooks, Mac pro and iPods along with over 500 accessories and peripherals complementing Apple products.

The company also plans to set up 150 outlets of 'Reliance Digital', its consumer electronic concept mega store, across the country in two years. It already has 5 stores in this format.

May 10, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Spencer's Retail to pump in Rs 1,500 cr for expansion

RPG Group company Spencer's Retail on Friday said it would invest Rs 1,500 crore to open around 250 new retail outlets across the country within a year.

"We will invest Rs 1,500 crore across different formats in the next 12 months to open additional 250 stores. The total retail space will go up to 22.5 lakh sq feet by March 2009," RPG enterprises Vice Chairman Sanjeev Goenka told reporters while announcing the launch of two new hyper stores at Ghaziabad and Gurgaon.

The company is also holding talks with number of international retail players for setting up joint ventures in the country.

Without divulging the names of international players with whom the company is in talks with, Goenka said, "We are looking at international tie ups across various categories and in the next six months a number of joint ventures will be announced."

Presently, the company operates 400 stores across 65 cities in India under different formats like, Super market, Hyper market, Express and Dailies. Spencer's Retail is planning a high growth in future, with a target to clock a turnover of Rs 1,800 crore by the end of current financial year.

May 9, 2008
Source: The Hindu

Tata revamping retail business

Tata Group's retail venture Trent has transferred Star Bazaar, its hypermarket format to the proposed wholly owned subsidiary, indicating yet another sign of the revamp mode. It recently acquired the remaining 24 per cent stake in Landmark chain of bookstores.

The company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that the Star Bazaar business will now be handled by Trent Retail Ltd, the proposed wholly owned subsidiary of the company. Trent had launched Star Bazaar hypermarket at Ahmedabad in 2004 and had recently entered Bangalore. When contacted Trent officials were not available for comments.

Trent also operates Westside chain of apparel stores. Recently it partnered with  three emerging fashion designers and roped in popular designer Narendra Kumar to develop dedicated collections for the Westside stores

May 8, 2008
Source: Business Standard

SRS Group to invest Rs 500 cr in retail this year

Faridabad-based SRS Group plans to invest Rs 500 crore in this year to open a number of retail outlets across India with formats including hyper markets and speciality stores for apparel.

The company, which currently operates 28 retail stores selling items of daily needs including groceries, food vegetables and garments, plans to expand presence by opening 100 stores under its brand name SRS Value Bazaar within this year. The planned number of stores also include around 15 hyper cmarkets with an area of 50-80,000 square feet each.

While, in the apparel category, the company today announced the launch of its first retail store under the brand name of 'Fashion Wear' in Faridabad. Going ahead, company plans to open 20-25 such stores in this year offering more than 30 Indian and International premium brands like Lee, Levi's, Wrangler, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe and Lilliput.

"The Group is looking at aggressively expanding the retail presence in the country. We will invest around Rs 100 to open 20-25 new apparel stores. While Rs 400 crore would be spent on Value Bazzars in this year," SRS Group Marketing and Sales Head Gourav Sain told PTI.

He said there are a total number of 29 SRS Value Bazaars with an average area of 4000sqare feet each operational in different cities in northern India. The group has definitive plans to expand the retail chain with 16 new stores every month and has signed leasing agreements for over 50 locations with developers like Omaxe, Chadha Group.

May 7, 2008
Source: Economic Times

Regional News

Never mind modern retail, Chennai’s kiranas do well: Study

It’s 12 years to the day since modern and organised retailing took birth in Chennai when Carnatic music icon, the late M.S. Subbulakshmi, inaugurated the first Foodworld store, then promoted by the RPG group, on C.P. Ramaswamy Road, one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

Twelve long years later, from the inauguration on the May 9, 1996, of the first Foodworld store, Chennai has the largest penetration of modern supermarket stores compared with any other Indian city. During these 12 years modern organised supermarkets have grown to more than 250 stores in Chennai. Subhiksha, Spencer’s Daily, Reliance Fresh and Aditya Birla’s More have all got more than 50 stores each. These modern stores occupy about 7 lakh sq ft of street front retail space and about 5 lakh sq ft of warehousing and distribution centre space.

However, if one thought the corner store or the kiranas were struggling in the face of the onslaught from organised retail, it’s far from the truth. In order to understand the impact of modern organised supermarket retailing, Kiranafirst, a not-for-profit organisation, devoted to enhancing competitiveness of kiranas, undertook detailed research on this subject. The study found that modern supermarkets are still struggling and the good news is that traditional kiranas are reinventing themselves and have become more prosperous.

The study incorporates research by members of faculty and students of a prominent city business school. A total of 304 kiranas from 30 stratified geographic hamlets in Chennai were chosen to study the impact of modern supermarkets on traditional kiranas.

The outcome of the research, to be published exclusively in this newspaper, has been serialised in three parts: Status of supermarket retailing, emergence of ‘super kiranas’ and impact on traditional kirana stores.

However, the study finds that organised retail too has changed the shopping habits of Chennaiites. While new stores are being added on, the current monthly revenues of organised retail in the city is about Rs 50 crore a month.

The study puts Chennai’s household expenditure on food, groceries and other household consumables at about Rs 250 crore per month from 12 lakh homes. This would mean that modern supermarkets are taking away some 20 per cent of Chennai’s domestic expenditure.

While specific numbers are not available, the study makes an assumption that supermarkets’ share of SEC A and B-plus segments could well be between 30 and 35 per cent. This figure compares favourably with other developed retail markets in the Asian region such as Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan.

May 9, 2008
Source: Hindu Business Line

Apparel & Accessories

Arvind brands to launch Hartmarx in India

Arvind Brands, a division of Arvind Mills Ltd, has signed an exclusive license agreement with The Hartmarx Corporation, a US-based men's tailored clothing company, to design, distribute and retail their brands in India. Arvind will have access to Hart Schaffner Marx, Pierre Cardin and Sansabelt brands of men's apparel.

These brands will be distributed through large departmental stores and multi-branded outlets, a company press release said.

"The addition of Hart Schaffner Marx, Pierre Cardin and Sansabelt to our basket of international brands will further enhance our position in the premium apparel category. The suit segment in the Indian market is all set to explode. We would like to encash on this opportunity. Our partnership with Hart Marx will certainly help us take an aggressive stance in the men's suits market," said J Suresh, CEO of Arvind Brands.

Hartmarx Corporation currently manages more than 35 brands either owned or licensed. Focused on the young, ambitious and contemporary minded men, Hartmarx through its iconic brands like Hart Schaffner Marx, Pierre Cardin and Sansabelt offers a wide range of formal dressing for men with a classic American style.

May 7, 2008
Source: Business Standard

Luxury & Lifestyle

Now, Koutons to step in leather footwear

High on expansion plans, apparel manufacturer Koutons Retail India plans to add leather footwear and other accessories such as handbags. For this, it has tied up with a local Uttarakhand company for manufacturing shoes and handbags. The accessories are expected to hit the stores in the next three to four months.

The company also plans to procure raw leather from Kanpur and Agra Markets and have them manufactured at its Uttarakhand factory. An initial amount of Rs 25 crore has been set aside for this venture. This is in addition to the company's other expansion plans, which include opening 300 exclusive women's and kids stores and 100 family stores in this fiscal.

Talking to FE, Balwinder Singh Ahluwalia, president, Koutons Retail said the idea behind the family stores is to establish comfort zones for the entire family. “Our USP is of making quality in fashion, affordable to the middle class segment. Opening family stores was a step in the right direction as we wanted to maintain the number one position in the apparel retail segment by tapping on women's and kids apparel too,” he said.
Commenting on the company's plans to foray in Middle East and China by the end of this year, Ahluwalia said that talks are on whether the company would open its stand-alone stores or enter into a tie-up with a local retail chains.

According to Ahulwalia, the company is aiming to focus South and Western India in a big way. “We will penetrate into all the four southern states as well as Maharashtra as the demand for branded apparel is huge in these regions,” he said.

Ahluwalia, who was in Lucknow to inaugurate the company's 3rd family store of the company in Uttar Pradesh, after Ghaziabad and Aligarh, said that in the fiscal ending 2008, the state had given Rs 150 crore business to the company and hence, it also figured high on the expansion spree of the company. “By its sheer size and population, UP has a huge potential, which we plan to fully exploit,” he added.

May 13, 2008
Source: Financial Express

Reebok to evolve as sports lifestyle brand

Reebok India has decided to evolve the Reebok brand on the 'sports lifestyle' platform in India. The company wants to do this by rolling out merchandise which will have a lifestyle flavour and expand its present network of lifestyle stores from seven to 50-60 by March 2009. The company feels such a focus is integral to grow its business in India.

In line with this, Reebok India has built up a lifestyle product portfolio for apparel, shoes and accessories. This includes designer products such as a collection named on Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson, jeans styled by cricketer MS Dhoni, Bipasha Basu collection, Manish Arora collection and several other inspired by global sports like skating.

"The lifestyle area will be a focused business for Reebok. This is due to the fact that lifestyle is now coming into sports in India. We have started rolling out speciality lifestyle retail outlets whose network will increase from present seven stores to 50-60 by year end,” Reebok India MD Subhinder Singh told reporters here on Friday.

Reebok currently claims to enjoy 51% market share in the Indian sports (footwear and apparel) market. It has also decided to focus on the ‘sports replica’ business by selling merchandise for some of the top sports and teams in India. For starters, it has rolled out merchandise for four of the IPL teams - Kolkata Knight Riders, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.

“Globally, the replica business is huge. It is still small in India and we have made the beginning with the IPL. This is the first year and once we make our trials and error, we will look into this business for other sports in India as well,” said Mr Singh.

Incidentally, Reebok has even transformed one of its flagship store in Kolkata as ‘Reebok Knight Riders’ store. This store will have an entire floor showcasing the merchandise collection of the team. “This year, we will roll out such specialised stores only for the Kolkata team. In fact, we will set up two such stores even in Mumbai and New Delhi,” Mr Singh said.

Reebok globally is betting on India and China to grow its business. At present, the Indian operations are much bigger than China. Reebok has grown six times in the last four years in India. It currently has 675 stores across the country, which will be increased to 800 by fiscal end.

May 10, 2008
Source: Economic Times

HR

Retailers go 'shopping' for manpower in Gulf

The Gulf region is regarded as a shopper’s paradise thanks to the planeloads of Indians who travel there regularly. For Indian retailers, it is also the training hub for shop floor services. So when the Indian retail sector is hit with the current crisis of acute trained manpower shortage, they all turned to the Gulf.

And surprisingly it is mostly Filipinos that Indian retailers are interested in. High end retailers are known to bring in trained Filipino employees from countries in the Gulf and the Middle East to fill up vital spaces in large malls in India. The interest in Filipinos is because the South East Asian nation specialises in visual merchandising for premium, luxury brands.

While the Bangalore-headquartered Arvind Brands—a unit of Arvind Mills—is targeting visual merchandisers from the Middle East from the Filipino ethnic group, the Mumbai-based Just in Vogue is looking for floor managers, again Filipinos, for the post of managers who will typically lead a counter sales team of 10-12 people. The retailer plans to deploy the first batch of five to seven people across three stores in the country by September, at the start of the festive shopping season.

Both retailers have planned to locate these expat staff in stores selling premium or luxury items and brands. “Manpower is a big problem for us and we are seriously considering getting Filipino staff from the Gulf region to handle the visual merchandising for our premium or luxury brands,” said Arvind Brands’ CEO Suresh J. The special aptitude of Filipinos in visual merchandising category has been the main reason for their selection.
Industry specialists explained that a visual merchandiser has the dual role of interacting with the floor manager and then ensuring that the merchandise is displayed attractively.

Just in Vogue marketing head Manoj Subramanian, which has been chain retailing luxury goods such as watches, pens, jewellery and leather goods, hopes to appoint first few such floor managers from September.

“The delays has been due to issues regarding compensation,” Mr Subramanian said. While the Indian company offered $400-500 a month (about Rs 16,000 to Rs 20,000) with lodging and boarding extra, the staff wants $750-800 (Rs 30,000 to Rs 32,000). “We are now re-working the costing,” Mr Subramanian added. The company is inclined to go ahead with the increased cost, as in the “long run it is worth the cost,” Mr Subramanian said.

Initially, the retailer plans to bring in a group of five to eight people, who will work two shifts, since the store is open from 10.00 am to 10 pm. Mr Subramanian said expat workers would prefer to go in teams and stay together. Also, they would require at least a month-and-a-half training so the first batch should arrive in the country by July-August.

“We will find them guest houses close to work places. We will definitely have a two-three person team in the Mumbai store and two other locations, one in the north and the other in Gujarat. Two of these stores will be the highest value stores,” Mr Subramanian said. Just in Vogue has been established by Shabbir Khorakhiwalla, of the Akbarally’s and Wockhardt family, and Shailesh Sangani, creator of the Gili jewellery brand.

May 13, 2008
Source: Economic Times

e-Commerce

24-hour home shopping channel launched

HomeShop18, promoted by the Network18 Group, has launched the country’s first 24-hour home shopping channel in the city. Though the channel was first launched on April 9 in about 250 tier-II and -III locations across the country, Hyderabad is the ‘first metro’ which the channel has entered.“Initially, the cable TV network is being used to air the channel. But, we are also looking at tying up with direct-to-home service providers to air the channel,” Mr Sundeep Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer of HomeShop18, said at a press conference here.

According to him, the channel would feature 10,000 products belonging to 200 brands in 19 categories including lifestyle, electronic goods, consumer products, cookbooks, packaged foods, holiday packages and insurance products.

HomeShop18 plans to roll out products in 700 towns across the country through free-to-air channels before entering the other metros across the country.

“The features of every product would be explained by professional anchors. We have also set up a call centre, manned by our sales executives (not call centre associates), with multi-lingual capabilities. Once convinced, a customer could place an order by calling us or sending an SMS following the instructions given in the channel,” Mr Malhotra said.

He added that the company would deliver the product free of cost and the payment modes would include cash-on-delivery, cheque/DD pick-up, credit card, interest-free EMI or Internet banking.

May 10, 2008
Source: Hindu Business Line