Retail News May 2007

Big players – Plans and Investments: Reliance Retail, Bharti plans three-tier model, Future Group, Future Brands

General Trends & Information: Shopping malls, Retailer band, Dynamic pricing, Cash and Carry

International: Rewe tests, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Carrefour

Unique Formats: Retailers taste success, Shoppers’ Stop, Discount malls

Strategy: Big Bazaar, Specialty malls, Local stores, Pantaloon and Yash Raj Films

Regional Trends: Retailers focus on Kolkata, Reliance Retail, Reliance Fresh, RPG makes retail plans

HR News: Big Bazaar, One million people, Retail boom, HR is the name of the game

FMCG, Food & Grocery: Coca-Cola, Subhiksha, Large-scale, Reliance Fresh adds groceries

Apparel & Footwear: Raymond to expand, Arvind Brands, aLL to increase, Women’s wear

Big players – Plans and Investments

Reliance Retail might go in for used car sales
Monday, April 02, 2007

Reliance Retail might be entering another business sector, one for used car sales, which would be similar to Maruti’s True Value and Mahindra’s Automart, which also focus on second car sales. The company had already announced its intentions to set up automobile service centers along with auto finance divisions at its retail stores. Reliance has been in talks with Corghi SpA, an Italian firm to take care of the auto servicing.

Source: Business Standard

Bharti plans three-tier model
Thursday, April 05, 2007

Bharti Retail and Wal-Mart will be settling on a three-tier retail model that will offer consumers a store within every 1.5 to 7 kms. After studying the market, Bharti has decided to have small convenience stores less than 2 kms from consumer’s homes, mid-level stores within 2-3 kms, and hypermarkets within 5-7 kms from consumer’s homes. This format contrasts with Wal-Mart’s model in the US where it’s stores are located in the suburbs of the city.

According to Vinod Sawhney, Bharti Retail president and CEO, “In India, our studies have shown we require a multi-format store structure, and for large store formats we have to consider the challenges posed by our poor infrastructure. The distance has to be convenient for customers to go to the store.”

Small stores will range from 2,000-5,000 sq ft in size and will stock fresh food, grocery and household items that are frequently purchased. These stores will also be franchised out to mom-and-pop operators. Mid-level stores will range from 25,000-50,000 sq ft and hypermarkets will range in size from 75,000-150,000 sq ft.

Source: Business Standard

Future Group offers consumer finance services
Saturday, April 07, 2007

The country’s largest retailer, Future Group introduced its consumer finance division, Future Money, which will function under Future Capital Holdings and will provide up to 70-80% credit of the cost of purchases made at Future Group stores. The service will later be extended to purchases made at other retailers and also for home, automobiles and credit cards.

Source: The Economic Times

Reliance Retail gets ready to unveil e-commerce venture
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Retail will be unveiling its e-commerce venture which has been created to complement its physical stores. The company has set up warehouses at specific locations from where delivery would take place from orders placed online.

According to a source, the company will be focusing on both the B2B and B2C focus for its e-commerce venture. Arvind Singhal adds that, “For Reliance Retail it makes a lot of sense to introduce an e-commerce arm as they have the advantage of physical stores already being present. Having physical delivery stores always add to the convenience and success of the online business model for retailers.”

Source: The Economic Times

Future Brands plans to recreate private labels
Monday, April 23, 2007

The Future Group is currently in the process of redoing its private brands into conventional labels. According to Santosh Desai, managing director and CEO of Future Brands, "Under Future Brands, we will be revamping and marketing some of our private label products to position them as any of the other existing brands in a conventional and a traditional sense in the market." The company will be redoing 7-8 of its private labels.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Reliance is highest bidder for Park Circus market
Thursday, April 26, 2007

Reliance Retail has won the bid to redevelop the Park Circus civic market under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), beating three Kolkata based real estate developers. As per the conditions, Reliance has 154,000 sq ft of space in a total area of 230,000 sq ft. At present there are 400 stallholders who will have to be rehabilitated. Only 10-15% of the total area would be kept for the corporation, and the balance would be for Reliance to develop a mall or multiplex or shopping market.

Source: Business Standard

Pantaloon net up by 73% for Jan-Mar quarter
Friday, April 27, 2007

Future Group’s flagship division Pantaloon Retail reported a 15.2% increase in net profits at Rs. 187.1 million as compared to Rs. 16. 24 million for the same quarter of the previous year. Net sales grew by 89% to Rs. 610.4 million and revenues from its value retail segment increased from Rs. 2,978.6 million to Rs. 5,584.6 million.

Source: The Economic Times

Wal-Mart: Small retailers are here to stay
Thursday, May 03, 2007

Wal-Mart is reiterating that the company’s plans to enter India are in compliance with the current FDI regulations, and that the company will only be conducting business via the cash-and-carry format, as required by the law. According to Raj Jain, president of emerging markets for Wal-Mart, “We are not doing retail in India because that’s not permitted by law. We are planning to enter into the cash-and-carry business. We have spoken to planners and influencers and they have all said that what Wal-Mart was planning in India was good.”

The company will be hiring over 1,000 people for its cash-and-carry format in the next 2-3 years. There will be 5-10 stores opening in the next 2-3 years under a new name that will be announced in the coming weeks. This venture will be owned equally with Bharti Enterprises.

Its second venture will be 100% owned by Wal-Mart and will pertain to vendor management and providing support and inputs to vendors, to raise their standards up to the international level. Wal-Mart will also assist Bharti in setting up the infrastructure for distribution and logistics for the cash-and-carry stores.

Source: The Economic Times

Birla’s retail venture to start in June
Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Aditya Birla Retail will be formally launching its Rs. 400 billion retail venture in June, after having finalized its key people. The first store is to be opened in Pune in June. The company will be focusing only on select formats of supermarkets, hypermarkets and apparel. The company had also purchased Trinethra for Rs. 1.5 billion to get a head start on its food and grocery business.

At the helm is Russell Berman who is the head of operations and has worked with Carrefour, Chinese retail chain Lian Hua, and French retail chain Auchan. Another high profile joinee is Peter Denby, who was earlier with Sainsbury’s and will be looking after the supermarket division of the company. Juzar Mastan will look after the supply chain and logistics division. Sumant Sinha, the COO of the AV Birla Group and the CEO-designate will be the overall head of the company.

Source: The Economic Times

Birla Retail likely to drop Trinethra brand name
Thursday, May 03, 2007

Aditya Birla Retail will be opening stores by the end of the year and is likely to rename the Trinethra stores that it purchased earlier this year, so that all of its stores have a cohesive branding. Trinethra has been using its name in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and the Fabmall brand name in Kerala and Karnataka. The new brand name is being used for Trinethra, so that consumers will associate it with the value and quality of the Birla name.

Source: Business Standard

Wal-Mart attracts small women owned businesses for development venture
Saturday, May 05, 2007

The US retail giant is planning to initiate a supplier development program in India, by launching a private equity fund aimed at small businesses and women-owned ventures. While the size of the fund has yet to be finalized, sources suggest that it will follow the company’s global strategy. Beth Keck, senor director of international corporate affairs, said that, “These programmes are targeted at women, small farmers and other groups that may not have ready access to organised retailers and these initiatives have been very important in bringing local products into our stores.”

Source: The Economic Times

General Trends & Information

Shopping malls mania could lead to glut
Sunday, April 01, 2007

As retailers are continuing on their furious expansion plans and real estate developers are trying to complete malls for them, there is a sense of wariness among all in the retail industry that this intense competition of mall mania could lead to a glut of malls. While the mall format is expected to be a significant factor in driving the growth of the retail industry, it could also backlash.

With the entry of so many major companies in the retail sector, the growth is likely to rise even higher, according to Merrill Lynch. Newer entrants such as Reliance, Aditya Birla Group, Bharti Walmart are looking to open stores in new areas and are driving the growth to these areas.

ICICI Property and Technopak predict that malls will account for half of the organized retail space in the next five years. The competition to existing retailers such as Pantaloon and Shoppers’ Stop will be intense, as newer players will have the lead in new territories.

Source: The Economic Times

Retailer band together to raise quality standards
Thursday, April 12, 2007

Some of the country’s high profile retailers are coming together to raise the standards of the quality of customer service as well as the quality of products that is being provided at retail stores. Companies such as Pantaloon, Reliance, Bata and ICICI Bank are joining together to set higher standards for the services they provide. While competition is making some companies offer a higher quality of service, there is no formal standard to serve as a benchmark in the service sector in India.

This new endeavor to improve service standards is being led by FICCI, an industry association that combines consumer and government bodies. According to H Lal, FICCI’s quality forum director, “With the boom in the services sector, it was only imperative for the industry to set a standard for themselves in terms of quality, which has close links with their bottomline.” The agency is keen not only on creating standard
quality levels and procedures but in implementing and training employees in them.

Source: The Economic Times

Dynamic pricing comes to consumer retail
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The concept of dynamic pricing has been around for a while in India, for airfares and hotels and is now being seen in retailing of apparel, consumer electronics, personal care and other segments. According to Vishnu Prasad, CEO of Pantaloon Retail, “With the advent of modern retail, dynamic pricing can get a good response in our price-sensitive market. However, it should be done keeping in mind the consumer acceptability in respective markets as well as the store format.”

With dynamic pricing, the prices of products can respond to supply and demand factors in the market. According to Professor of Marketing at IIM-A Arvind Sahay, “Earlier, the companies were employing season-based pricing and clearance sale pricing. But now with high competition, demand pressure and higher consumer acceptability, we are adopting mid-term dynamic pricing.” Lalit Kumar, CEO of Ebony Retail Holdings agrees that dynamic pricing ensures a quick turnover of stock and generates good results.

Source: The Economic Times

Organized retail share expected to rise to 20%
Monday, April 23, 2007

According to new estimates from FICCI, the organized retail sector will see a 30% growth by 2010 from its current 4%, while the total retail sector will grow to $430 billion, from its current $328 billion. The association has recommended the opening up of FDI, granting industry status, tax rationalization and encouraging public-private initiatives to train the required manpower.

The report further states that the organized sector will grow at a 50% rate and will be worth $90 billion by 2010. In the past five years, the organized sector has been growing at 35% and accounts for 1.5% of the country’s GDP at present. The bulk of the expected growth will take place in larger cities.

Source: The Economic Times

Cash and Carry format facing the brunt of the protests
Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The retail battle has shifted to the cash and carry format, as anti-FDI organizations are protesting that international retail chains are using the cash and carry route to enter the retail sector of India and are circumventing the rules. The campaign has been organized by the Federation of Association of Maharashtra (FAM), Acorn-India FDI Watch campaign and the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and has already got support from several leaders in the government such as Priya Ranjan Das Mushi and Meira Kumar.

The cash and carry format was opened for 100% foreign investment in 2000, when there had been a lot of interest shown in the Indian consumer. Metro of Germany was the first international company to receive permission to enter the country on this format in 2003, followed by Shoprite a South African chain in 2006.

Source: The Economic Times

International

Rewe tests Indian retail market
Friday, April 06, 2007

The third largest food and grocery retailer of Europe, Rewe is testing the Indian market for scope of entry. The German retailer is estimated to be worth around 42 billion Euro and has 11,000 stores in 14 countries. The retailer operates in many formats, including supermarket, discount stores and cash-and-carry.

Top executives from the company are said to be visiting India at the end of April and will be meeting top officials and policymakers on opening stores in India. The Rewe Group operates under the Billa, Merkur and Standa names for its supermarket stores and Penny Market and XXL for its discount format and transGourmet and Selgros for its wholesale format.

Source: The Economic Times

Calvin Klein to enter Indian market
Monday, April 16, 2007

US based designer brand Calvin Klein will be coming to India to for its watch and jewelry business, with stores opening by the end of April. The company hopes to have a minimum of 25 outlets in its first year in the country, in cities such as Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Source: Indiaretailing.com

Starbucks applies again
Friday, April 20, 2007

US based coffee chain Starbucks has filed a fresh and revised application with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to operate single brand stores in India. According to the Starbucks spokesperson, the company was hopeful of opening its first outlet by the end of this year in either Delhi or Mumbai. Starbucks is one of 15 companies that showed interest in opening stores once the Indian government permitted FDI in single brand retailing last year. Of the 15 applications, nine have been approved, three are pending and three have been rejected.

Source: Business Standard

Louis Vuitton in process of buying 20% share of Hidesign
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

LMVH, the global luxury brand is looking to take on competition from Japanese luxury bag makers via its purchase of 20% stake in Indian bag manufacturer Hidesign. The company will position the Hidesign brand against its nearest competitor Coach in the Japanese market, focusing on department store sales. LVMH will use Hidesign as its affordable luxury brand.

According to Dilip Kapur, president of Hidesign, “Our partnership with Louis Vuitton is at the operational, marketing and design front but all decision making will be ours. In addition to the equity stake, there is an understanding of mutual aid between the two brands.”

Source: The Economic Times

Carrefour postpones India plans
Friday, April 27, 2007

French retailer Carrefour has indefinitely put off its plans to open stores in India, due to “rising political opposition” for the entry of international retailers. According to Carrefour India head, Gerard Freiszmuth, “We will not be in a position to announce any concrete India entry plan till policy issues on FDI in retail are made clear.” The company is also waiting to hear some decisions on the Wal-Mart-Bharti deal and will decide accordingly. Carrefour is also awaiting for the results of the ICRIER study that the government had commissioned in February, on the impact of large retailers, international and domestic companies, on the local mom-and-pop retailers.

Source: The Economic Times

Unique Formats

Retailers taste success in catering to plus-size market
Sunday, April 01, 2007

Retailers who are targeting niche categories such as the plus size market are finding their ventures very successful, due to changing consumer perceptions and attitudes that make it easier to accept plus size clothing. With more women working and not wearing tailored clothes, regular retail stores were not meeting the need for ready made plus size clothing.
Technopak estimates that close to 30% of the population is overweight and interested in buying plus size clothing. The category is witnessing a 35% growth rate, which is sure to bring in more players.

Source: The Economic Times

Shoppers’ Stop and Nuance Group bag retail concession at Hyderabad airport
Thursday, April 05, 2007

Shoppers’ Stop and the Nuance Group have bagged the retail concession at the Hyderabad airport, which is to be operated by the GMR group. The firms will have a 7-year contract for 28,450 sq ft of space and will start its operations in March 2008. Revenues are expected to be in the rage of $240 million. According to T. Srinagesh, CEO of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL) said that 6 stores will be set up, three in the domestic terminal and three at the international terminal.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Discount malls galore
Sunday, April 22, 2007

Retailers in India are fascinated by the concept of discount malls, where branded goods are sold at 30-40% lower than the MRP. In the next two years, there will be around 50 such malls coming up, such as the Orchard Road Mall, which is being developed by Royal Palms in a Mumbai suburb, which will retail all the major brands such as Welspun, Calvin Klein, Louis Phillipe, Adidas, Nike and many more. Akruti Nirman is another developer who is creating discount malls at first only in Mumbai’s suburbs and in a later development in other tier II and III towns as well.

Source: Financial Express

Strategy

Big Bazaar to play BIG 92.7 FM radio in its stores
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Big Bazaar and BIG 92.7 FM, an Adlabs initiative, have tied up to broadcast its radio at Big Bazaar outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Food Bazaar outlets in Mumbai and Delhi. According to Anand Chakravarthy, National Marketing Head for BIG 92.7 FM, "Through this initiative, we would be able to make lakhs of people, who visit these outlets, sample our station. We are also working on entering into similar tie-ups with the company to play out our station at its Chennai outlets."

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Specialty malls could be the key to retail success
Sunday, April 08, 2007

Specialty malls for niche retail areas such as jewelry are of the focus areas of retailers as well as real estate developers. While there are only a few specialty malls in the country at present, the Retailers Association of India (RAI) estimates that these malls will account for 10% of total malls in the country in the next three years.

The most famous of these specialty malls is jewelry-focused mall, the Gold Souk Mall that has been developed by the Aerens Gould Souk Group. Bangalore’s Prestige Group has redone its Eva Mall into a super-specialty mall focusing only on ethnic Indian women’s wear. Alpha Medical Services has launched the Alpha Family Health Mall in Kolkata and the Merlin Group has developed Home Land, a home furnishings dedicated mall.

While footfalls are much lower at these malls, conversion rates are significantly higher. According to real estate and retail analyst Susil Dungarwal, "Conversion rate in a specialty mall is nearly 65 per cent while it is only 18-20 per cent in a general mall. The reason is that generic malls attract anybody and everybody but the specialty malls offer a focused merchandise to the consumers."

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Local stores get proactive to compete with the big guns of retail
Saturday, May 05, 2007

Local stores have started offering competitive rates to compete with the organized retailers. Where at one time, no kirana store sold a product for less than the Maximum Retail Price (MRP), now they offer lots of schemes and discount plans just as the larger retailers do. Some small retailers are also aligning themselves with certain companies such as Hindustan Lever, Proctor & Gamble to become preferred suppliers for them. Due to stiff competition, kirana stores are finally waking up to become competitive and try to attract consumers. While earlier they had a captive audience, now consumers have so many choices, that unless local stores offer them some competitive advantage, they will get sidelined.

Source: The Economic Times

Pantaloon and Yash Raj Films tie up for merchandising
Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Pantaloon Retail and Yash Raj Films have tied up to promote the film “Ta Ra Rum Pum”, with Pantaloon having created a special merchandise theme in several categories, including apparel, accessories, toys, stationery etc. This special merchandise will be available in all if its stores till May 15th.

Source: The Economic Times

Regional Trends

Retailers focus on Kolkata
Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Retailers are focusing on Kolkata even though there is a severe shortage of large retail space. Several retailers are now looking for space in the outskirts of Kolkata instead. RPG Enterprises is looking for land in Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and Durgapur for all formats of its Spencer’s stores, ranging from 1,500 to 50,000 sq ft. Pantaloon has set up its largest store in Kankugachi spread over 85,000 sq ft and Spencer’s will soon also be opening its largest hypermarket in Kolkata.

Source: Business Standard

Reliance Retail opens in Ahemadabad, plans to open 180 stores in Gujarat
Monday, April 09, 2007

Reliance Retail will be opening 180 food and grocery stores in the state of Gujarat under its Reliance Fresh brand in the next six months. The stores will be located in 16 cities across the state. The announcement was made at the launch of nine Reliance Fresh stores in Ahmedabad. The company will open the first 45 of these in the next month itself, in cities like Vadodara, Surat, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Rajkot.

Source: The Economic Times

Reliance Fresh opens additional stores in Jaipur
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Reliance added to its stores in Jaipur by added another 4 stores in the city, making it a total of 11 in the city now. According to Umesh Bhandari, chief executive, Rajasthan, of Reliance Retail, “We are extremely happy to reach a cross-section of customers. We will continue to deliver affordable goods, maintain quality and wide choice of products and services to the consumer. We will also fine tune our offering by listening to the consumers and learning from them.”

Source: Business Standard

RPG makes retail plans for Orissa
Thursday, May 03, 2007

The RPG Group is focusing on Orissa for its retail expansion and will be investing Rs. 2 billion in the state to set up retail chains in the next 1-2 years. The company is planning to open 25-30 stores in the state, including supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores.

Source: Business Standard

HR News

Retailers finding ways to retain top talent
Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Some of the leading retailers are offering attractive retention packages to top performers in an effort to hold on to them. Retailers such as Future Group, Reliance Retail, Ebony and RPG Retail are in the process of creating the ‘golden handcuff’ type of scheme, which will reduce churning at the top level. Golden handcuffs are special retention packages that induce an employee either emotionally or monetarily to stay with the company.

Future Group has a scheme that provides insurance to its top three levels of employees and their family members. The company has tied up with MetLife India and Bajaj Alliance General Insurance to provide insurance to employees at the company’s cost, and would provide the monthly salary till retirement age in case of the demise of the employee. There are other schemes for other levels of employees, which number 17,000 at present.

Source: The Economic Times

Big Bazaar decides to re-employ sacked staff
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

After an uproar created by local labor unions and employees, Big Bazaar has decided to retain the 100 employees that it had recently fired due to surplus manpower. According to Sadashiv Naik, Head of operations (west) for Pantaloon Retail India Ltd., “They are additional employees but we have to retain them though it is difficult for us. The employees will be deployed in our outlets in and around Mumbai and Gujarat within the next five to six working days.”

The Bharitiya Kamgar Sena (BKS), which is controlled by the Shiv Sena, held protests against the sacking and led to the closing of the Big Bazaar outlets in Mumbai suburbs of Lower Parel and Mulund. The stores have estimated to have faced a 40-50% loss on daily turnovers.

Source: The Economic Times

Reliance Retail restructuring management
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Reliance Retail is changing the way its management is structured from a vertical structure to a store based structure starting off from May 1st 2007. As per the new organizational structure, Bhavdeep Singh will become the new head of Reliance Fresh; S Radhakrishna will be the new head of the hypermarket division which is likely to be called Reliance Hyper Marts; and Ajay Baijal will be the new head of Reliance Digital, the company’s consumer electronic and IT brand. Other heads of specialty chains will be decided at the time of their launches.

The human resources department will also see a change, which Uday Bhende as its new head, who will take over from Bijay Sahoo. Several of the new recruits are fresh from the US; Bhavdeep Singh worked with a retail chain there and Uday Bhende was with Siemens earlier. S Radhakrishna joined from Spencer’s last year and Ajay Baijal was poached from Reliance Communications after the early departure of Rajeev Karwal.

Source: The Economic Times

One million people required in organized retail
Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The Retailers Association of India (RAI) said that for the organized retail sector to grow, it needs one million people in the next ten years. The current size of the retail sector is Rs. 9300 billion, of which the organized retail sector accounts for only Rs. 350 billion. The bulk of the retail sector consists of fragmented shops, owned by small independent owners who manage the shops themselves. Gibson Vedamani, CEO of RAI, said that the retail sector would require professional across all levels.

Source: The Economic Times

Retail boom translates to increased retail courses in business schools
Thursday, May 03, 2007

As the number of shops and malls increase, the need for talented manpower is rising, leading to business schools increasing their offerings on retail. The Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) had earlier tied up with Pantaloon Retail for a two-year retail management program and now NSHM has recently tied up with RAI for postgraduate programs in retail management.

According to Krishnendu Sarker, head of learning systems at NHSM, the 18-month residential programme is targeted at the high end of students and entrance will be conducted on a national level, similar to the CAT.

Source: Telegraph India

HR is the name of the game
Saturday, May 05, 2007

The retail sector is dependent on its manpower, and its short supply is leading to companies taking strong steps to retain as well as attract talent. Reliance Retail, for example, has hired 15 people who visit other stores to size up the sales staff and make them on-the-spot offers. Spinach took an even more interesting approach and has hired 100 vegetable and fruit vendors from the street and has given them Rs. 6,000 per month along with benefits such as medical insurance, PF and insurance.

According to Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors, “Education, language no bar. Retailing will create just the kind of jobs India’s unemployed and poor needs.” It is being said that retailing will change the fate of India’s poor in the same way that BPOs changed the fate of the middle class.

Source: The Economic Times

FMCG, Food & Grocery

Coca-Cola to open lounges
Friday, April 06, 2007

Coca-Cola India will be launching a chain of lounges called the Red Lounge as a one-stop destination for all Coke products. The first of these outlets will be opened in Pune and depending on the feedback, more stores will be opened across the country. The lounge will serve as a place for young people can relax, chat, watch TV, play video games, surf the net and catch up with their friends. Coca-Cola has such lounges in the US and Singapore already.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Subhiksha aims for Rs. 30 billion by 2008
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Chennai based food and grocery retailer, Subhiksha is aiming big and hope to reach Rs. 30 billion by the 2008 financial year. The company has 700 retail stores and will be opening another 300 with an investment of Rs. 1.5 billion in the next 2-3 months. Of the new stores, 100 will be in the state of Maharashtra, while the remaining will be in either the south or the north.

Source: Business Standard

Large-scale organized retail shaking things up for small fast food chains
Thursday, April 26, 2007

The immense power of organized retail is shaking things up in the world of HR for small fast food chains, where people are moving across hierarchies, management structures and companies. Barista is currently facing 5% attrition per month from its 900 employees and is working to create a system where its staff don’t leave the company and instead want to build a career with them.

According to Partha Dattagupta, CEO of Barista Coffee Company, “We won’t call it stemming attrition, rather fostering growth.” The churn has hit Domino’s hard, with 10-15% at the management level and 50% at the front-end level. Ajay Kaul, CEO of Domino’s (Indian subcontinent) says that, “The threat from organized retail is clearly there, and we are constantly thinking of ways to retain talent, whether it is improving the work environment or empowering employees to grow further.” The number one reason that people join the larger retailers is to make more money. Other reasons are the potential of the opportunity and access to more challenging assignments.

Source: The Economic Times

Reliance Fresh adds groceries
Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Reliance will add groceries to its stores, rather than just selling fruit and vegetables. According to Gunender Kapur, president and chief executive of Reliance Retail’s food business, “We are looking at changing the product mix in our stores. We are learning with time and constantly evolving. We find that some categories aren’t selling up to expectations. We would replace those with other items.” The company will be reducing or completely replacing products that are not selling well in their stores. The sales of fruit and vegetables have been declining at their stores and the company is making an effort to increase the bill size that has stagnated at Rs. 120-130.

The average bill size at Subhiksha is usually around Rs. 300-320, and the company has a 60:40 product mix tilted towards grocery. The high cost of wastage in fresh fruits and grocery is what is making Reliance change its stores. Reliance is still sourcing fresh fruit and vegetables from the mandi as yet, since it’s own farm to fork initiative has not yet started.

Source: The Economic Times

Apparel & Footwear

Raymond to expand retail footprint
Thursday, April 05, 2007

Raymond launched its 350th store and announced that it will be expanding to 950 stores across the country by the year 2010. The company will invest approximately Rs. 5 million in setting up each store, which will have an average size of 2,500 sq ft.

Raymond’s brands include Park Avenue, ColorPlus, Manzini and Parx, which will all be available under one roof at these new stores. The company has over 1 million sq ft of retail space and is well placed in tier II and tier III towns already, where the majority of the retailers are racing to set up stores.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Arvind Brands to open 13 Nautica stores
Friday, April 06, 2007

At the launch of its sixth Nautica store, Arvind Brands announced that it will be opening 13 additional Nautica stores and investing Rs. 200 million in the coming year. New stores will be opening in smaller towns such as Jalandhar and Amritsar and metros such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi. Ten of the 13 new stores will be standalone format stores and the remaining three will be located in luxury malls.

Source: The Economic Times

aLL to increase presence
Friday, April 06, 2007

Plus size store aLL (a Little Larger) which is part of the Future Group, will be expanding to increase its stores to 50 by 2010. At present, there are nine aLL stores in the country, in cities such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Indore and Bangalore. Some of the newer stores will be exclusive standalone stores and others would be in the store-in-store format.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Raymond looks to dress women too
Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The company that has been famous for dressing men and has built it’s brand as “The complete man”, will now be offering products for women as well. Pradeep Bhandari, group president of Raymond said that the company conducted research and found that a lot of women purchase fabrics at Raymond and get it stitched at local tailors, so this is the company’s way of providing the same service that they to do for men to women as well. The company has signed a MoU with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) who will be training tailors for them.

Source: Business Standard

Women’s wear market sees a rush
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

As the number of working women increase, retailers selling ready-to-wear garments are seeing a rapid growth, especially some of the smaller retailers such as W and Bizarre. W plans to invest Rs. 300,000-500,000 per store to increase its store count from 130 to 500 over the next four years. The new stores would be a combination of standalone stores, multi-branded outlets and department stores. Bizzare is targeting smaller cities such as Agra and Chandigarh with its western wear and plans to open 6 stores this year and another 20 stores at a later stage.

Source: Business Standard