The vampire effect; sex in advertising

Research on sex in advertising yields some interesting conclusions. Sexual imagery definitely attracts the attention of men. But guess what? The sexual imagery draws the attention of the men away from the other elements of the ad, in a phenomenon that research firm MediaAnalyzer calls the “vampire effect.”

The vampire effect results in lower recall for sexual than nonsexual ads.

There’s nothing wrong with sexual imagery in advertising if it’s consistent with the brand. But used indiscriminately as an attention getter reflects the mistaken belief that ‘awareness’ is advertising’s only objective.

Brand creation

“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.”

- David Ogilvy, Brand Guru

Hariyali to expand retail network from 60 to 150 stores

Hariyali Kisan Bazaar (HKB), the rural retailing arm of DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (DSCL), which is currently operating 60 stores spread over five states, is planning to open 150 stores by March 2008. DSCL is also considering entering new markets in the west and the south, like Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

HKB sees a big opportunity in providing support for distribution and infrastructral requirements of new retail entrants like Reliance and Walmart. To realise the vast potential being offered by modern retail in the country, DSCL has begun procuring fresh vegetables and fruits for big Indian retailers like Food Baazar. In addition to tying up with the foreign retailers, the retail venture is also looking at tying up with other retail chains, reports the Economic Times.

40th Big Bazaar opened at Chennai

Kishore Biyani owned Pantaloon retail, which is a part of the Future Group, has opened its 40th Big Bazaar store in Chennai. This store occupies 50,000 square feet of retail space and expects a daily foot fall of around 50,000. The Chennai store happens to be the Pantaloon’s 10th Big Bazaar store in southern India. According to plans, Pantaloon expects to add at least five more Big Bazaar store in Chennai, while the number of Big Bazaar stores in the the South is expected to go up from the present 10 to more than 30 in just one year.

Big Bazaars, which follow hypermarket store format, claim to offer more than 1,50,000 SKUs, based on value proposition with the tagline: “Isse sasta aur isse achchha aur kahan?”

Bharati Walmart to invest 30% more than Reliance Retail?

India’s telecom czar Sunil Bharati Mittal, which recently tied up with Walmart, the biggest retailer of the world today outlined broad contours of its investment plans. Depending on investments in the real estate and logistics, the company within four years, or by 2010, will invest US$ 7 billion in creating retail network in the country. This will include, opening 100 (large stores) hypermalls and several hundred small stores to cater to the growing needs of middle income segment comprising 300 million customers.

This investment is roughly 30% higher than Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Retail, which plans to roll out 4,000 stores by 2011 at an estimated investment of US$ 5.5 billion. In retail business, comparing investments is rather irrelevant as the figures can differ substantially depending on who owns real the estate and the store premises. It may be recalled that Reliance made its retail foray with the launching of a cluster of 11 neighbourhood, convenience stores ‘Reliance Fresh,’ in Hyderabad on 3rd November, 2006. Since then, Reliance has added five stores each in Hyderabad and Jaipur, taking the current tally of stores to 21.

Jaipur vegetable vendors up in arms; demand closure of Reliance ‘Fresh’ outlets

Vegetable vendors in Jaipur are demanding closure of recently opened Reliance ‘Fresh’ outlets in the city, according to a report published in Keralanext. Reliance Fresh, as may be recalled, is a neighbourhood convenience stores format of Reliance Retail which offers fruits, flowers, vegetables and staples. Reliance ‘Fresh’ is part of its nationwide Rs. 25,000 crore retail initiative. Presently, 21 Reliance ‘Fresh’ stores are in operation in Hyderabad (16) and Jaipur (5).

Local vegetables vendors, according to the report, have said that these stores were severely affecting their business as they were not only bringing down their sales but were also taking away their customers as the newly opened stores were offering products at cheaper rates to shoppers .

The report cites a vegetable vendor as saying: “We are suffering losses as fifty percent customers have left and half of our vegetables are rotting as only half of them are being sold. We want the license of Reliance to be cancelled and their stores to be closed.”

Allaying the fears of vegetable vendors, Umesh Bhandari, Head of Reliance Retail, Rajasthan, is cited to have said that “The vendors should not worry as the market is big enough and growing at a very good rate and there is space for everybody. There is no need of panic because there is a customer for everyone.”

“At the same time, we are also trying to reach the customers through wholesale distribution mechanism whereby these vendors will be offered products, in wholesale, at reasonable rates,” he added.

Max Retail opens sixth store in Hyderabad; plans 100 stores in 5 years

Max Retail, a part of the Dubai based Landmark Group, launched its first Value Retail store in Hyderabad on Friday, the 22nd December, 2006. The new store, housed in City Centre Mall, occupies 16,000 square feet of retail space. The new store will cater to the needs of entire family offering fashion apparel, footwear and accessories. Fashion apparel will be priced between Rs. 99 and Rs. 599.Max will be targeting aspirational youth, between 22-35 years of age, which has been exposed to western influences, as its core customer.

The Hyderabad store, sixth in a planned network of 100 stores slated to be opened within the next five years across the country, is preceded by five stores which are operating in New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Indore and Agra. New stores in Mumbai and Lucknow are expected to be launched by March, 2007.

Max Retail, which was set up in 2004 is a pioneer in the Middle East of the global trend of delivering quality and value at very attractive prices, Max is recognised as a key player in the value retail format. It presently operates more than 30 stores across five countries.

Since its foundation in 1973, Landmark Group has rapidly grown into a retailing giant in the Middle East and India, with diversified other interests. The group now has over 280 retail outlets across eight countries with new stores opening at an average of over one a week.

The Landmark Group (Dubai) is present in India since 1998 through its chain of 12 Lifestyle stores in six cities.Headquartered in Dubai at the Oasis Mall, the Group’s high visibility retail brands include among others Babyshop, Shoe Mart, Splash, Home Centre and Lifestyle.

US retailers log below expectation pre Christmas sales

Though, bargain hunters and late comers flocked to stores this weekend, the late-buying binge was not enough to meet sales goals, and retailers are now turning to post-Christmas business to make this season a merry one, reports AP.

“These were big days, but they came up short in terms of traffic and sales,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a research firm, referring to this past Friday and Saturday. ShopperTrak monitors total retail sales at more than 45,000 outlets.

After a stronger-than-expected turnout on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, stores struggled through the first two weeks of December as consumers shopped at a disappointing pace.

Mothercare opens standalone showroom with Crossword in Hyderabad

The posh Banjara Hills area of Hyderabad saw opening of yet another standalone retail showroom of Mothercare, which also houses a Crossword outlet, on Friday, the 22nd December, 2006. While construction major K. Raheja owned, “Shoppers’ Stop,” is the master franchisee of the Mothercare brand in India, it owns the “Crossword” brand.

It was 40th outlet of Crossword, which seeks to educate, entertain and enlighten its customers by offering a wide variety of books, toys and music. Conceived 15 years ago, Crossword is considered as the country’s premier book retailer, which has revolutionised the concept of book retailing in India.

It was second store for Mothercare, which offers safe products for pregnancy and parenting. Conceived 45 years ago, Mothercare is now visited by 85% of the pregnant women in the U.K. and has the privilege of counting Angelina Jolie, Heather Mills McCartney and Jordan, among its customers.

This 10,000 square feet facility is a new format for Mothercare, in which a Crossword shop has been aloowed to operate in the same premises.

World’s best retail destinations: The Dubai Mall

We are glad to begin a series on the world’s most imteresting shopping destinations. Our first entry in the series is: The Dubai Mall, which when completed will be the world’s biggest. While the series is based on the selection of retail destinations made by Business Week, the content has been aggregated from various sources including Wikipedia.We plan to cover one retail destination every week.

 

Dubai Mall, the world’s biggest shopping destination, which earlier was planned to be completed in 2006, when fully completed (in 2009) will boasts of more than 12 million square feet in total retail space, with 10 – 15 individual smaller malls built inside it, consisting of 9 million ft. The Mall will house more than 1000 stores, around 50% of which would not have been seen before in Dubai.
Dubai mall beside having the world’s biggest Gold Souk (market), will have 850,000 sq ft big Fashion Island; one of the world’s largest aquariums; an Olympic-sized ice skating rink; Oasis Fountain Waterfall; WaterFront Atrium; and a view of the (soon to be completed) world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai.
Aimed at revitalizing the downtown area, the mall is expected to meet the merchandising and entertaining needs of 35 million customers in the inaugural year itself.

The mall has already won five awards. It won two awards at the Retail Future Project Awards at MAPIC, Cannes, in 2004, for Best Retail Development Scheme (Large), Best Use of Lighting in a Retail Environment. The Dubai Mall brochure has won three awards at the Summit Creative Awards 2005, in Portland, Oregon; Gold award for Best Art Direction / Graphic Design, Silver award for Best 4-colour B2B Brochure, and Judges Special Recognition award.

Currently, the largest mall in the world is believed to be the South China Mall in Dongguan, China, spread over an area of 9.6 million sq.ft.

Private Labels: Key to improved profitability

European markets have a long-standing practice of private labellings which has seen continuous growth. The perfect example is Marks & Spencer that has been there for almost a century.

In India, success has been seen in Westside, a department store, which only sells private labels and in Pantaloons, which has mixed brands.

– Jean-Christophe Goarin

Hyatt owner to brew coffee with ‘The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’

Shiv Jatia, the owner of Asian Hotels, which manages Hyatt Regency chain of luxury hotels in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, has tied up with Singapore based Coffee “The Bean & Tea Leaf” through its master franchisee UAE based Abbasi Group, to set up a chain of retail coffee shops in India. The coffee shops will be set up through a 50:50 jont venture with Abbasi.

To begin with, three of these shops will be set up in Mumbai in early 2007. The Mumbai launch will be followed by the coffee shops in Pune and Bangalore. The next phase of these shops, in a pan India expansion of the network, will come up in New Delhi and other cities across the country.

With the Indian economy booming, the Coffee Bean business model fits with market demands. This is the best time to be in India,” Vikas Sandhir, Coffee Bean’s operations manager for the UAE and Middle East said.

Hot beverage retailing continues to attract international retailers in India. “Starbucks,” the world leader in brewed coffee, as reported earlier, has recently tied up with Pantaloon Retail for setting up a retail chain of coffee shops in India, even though the brands like, “Barista,” “Cafe Coffee Day,” “Costa” and “Mocha” have already made name for themselves.

Vishal to widen base in South; to open 80 new mega marts in one year

The Rs 288 crore, Ram Chandra Agrawal owned, Vishal Mega Mart, which currently has 46 stores in 34 cities operating mostly in northern and western parts of India, has decided to expand its network by adding 80 new hypermarkets, 15 of which will come up southern Indian cities including Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kochi. Presently, Vishal has only one outlet in the southern city of Hyderabad.

The 80 new hypermarket stores targetted to come up in the next financial year will take the tally of Vishal chain to 126. These will entail a total investment of Rs 480 crore at an average of Rs. six crore each.

Vishal would also be launching hypermarkets in Chandigarh, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Ludhiana and Vadodara by mid 2007.

Vishal has fully integrated operations; right from manufacturing to retailing.

As reported earlier, Hypermarket format, which roughly may be considered as a combination of supermarket and departmental store, has captured the imagination of the shoppers across the country. All the existing and potential big names in the Indian retail including Shoppers’ Stop (HyperCity), Pantaloon (Big Bazaar), Tatas (Star Bazaar), Reliance and Bharati-Walmart are banking heavily on this retail format.

Vinod Sawhney to head Bharati Retail

Mr Vinod Sawhny, Joint President, Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel Ltd, who commenced his career with Bharati more than four years ago, will be heading the operations of Bharati Retail (P) Limited. Vinod began his career as the Chief Executive Officer of Bharati’s mobile operations in the Northern Region.

“We are delighted at the appointment of Vinod Sawhny as the Head of Bharti’s retail operations. Vinod has always been a major asset for Bharti and over the years contributed immensely in various capacities. I wish him all the best in his new role,” said Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of the Bharati Group, while announcing the appointment.

It may be recalled that Bharati has earlier allied with the world’s biggest retailer Walmart to set up retail business in India. While the front-end operations of this business, comprising different store formats like Hypermarkets, Super Centres and Neighbourhood Stores, will be owned and managed by Bharati, the back-end operations of the business, like supply chain, logistics and ‘cash & carry’ Sam’s Clubs, will be owned and managed by the two partners jointly.

As reported earlier, Walmart has already appointed Raj Jain, an old HLL/ Whirpool hand to handle its India business.

Nuance and Zegna FDI proposals for retail cleared

Zurich based, Swiss firm Nuance Group, which is dedicated to the concept of Innovation in all its forms- exciting shop concepts, range of products and pioneering collaborations, has obtained permission to bring in Rs 25 crore as FDI investment in the country. Nuance Group, which plans to set up duty-free shops at airports in India, was among 18 applicants whose proposal for FDI was cleared by the government of India on Thursday.

It may be recalled that Raheja owned Shoppers’ Stop has recently tied up with the Nuance group for this purpose. Nuance Group’s proposal is to undertake operation and management of duty-free shops, food and beverage outlets at airports in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and other places.

Besides, the proposal of Italian company Ermenegildo Zegna Holditalia, the world leader in men’s fine clothing, which wants to set up a single brand ‘zegna’ retail stores in India has also been approved by the government. The $865 million Zegna is a competitor to such world known brands as Gucci, Armani and Gianni Versace.

Carbon Accessories to open 20 stores in one year

Carbon Accessories, which began opening retail stores early this year, wants every Carbon store to be seen as a fashion accessories destination, according to its brand head Utsav Malhotra. Carbon Accessories, depending on construction of malls in selected towns, wants to set up at least 20 stores within a period of one year.

All Carbon Accessories stores will be located in Malls as its products unlike tradional jewellery products fell into the impulse buying category, reports the Hindu Business Line. According to Mahesh Rao, Managing Director: “Though conservatism is here to stay, people will need contemporisation in some facets of life, and that’s where brands such as Carbon will add value.”

Khadim footwear expanding retail presence

Kolkata based, Rs 131-crore strong, Khadim India Ltd, which owns the well known Khadim’s footwear and leather accessories brand, announced the opening of its 250th retail showroom in Ahmedabad. Khadim’s is also embarking on a Rs. 72 crore expansion plan in the next two years.

Since its having been founded 54 years ago, Khadim’s has gradually diversified into manufacturing and exporting of leather products, real estate development, media, communications and chain-store retailing with a noticeable presence in almost all parts of the country.

The company, which has a vision of remaining present in every Indian home in the foreseeable future, expects to increase its turnover to Rs. 160 crore this year. The footwear market which is estimated to be having a turnover of more than Rs. 10,000 crore in India has mostly been cornered by small players in the unorganised sector.

The company, presently, has about 200 showrooms operating in the Eastern, 26 showrooms in the Southern, 15 showrooms in the Northern and eight showrooms in the Western regions of the country.

YOGI: the new flavoured yoghurt from Amul

Amul, the country’s biggest food retail brand is launching a fruit flavoured yoghurt to be called Yogi, reports Business Standard. The product to be targetted at the youth and health consciousin will be made available in three flavours: strawberry, mango and pineapple, in early 2007.

GCCMF, the Rs. 3,774 crore food behemoth, which owns Amul brand, is also looking at introducing a range of sugar free chocolates and ice-creams. Amul’s emphasis on diet products is borne out from the research, according to which, youth below 25 years of age who constitute majority of its customers are looking at healthier alternatives to carbonated soft drinks.

As reported earlier, Amul had recently introduced Kool Cafe, a ready to drink coffee. Amul, over the last few years, has also been regularly introducing a range of milk-based products such as Kool flavoured milk, Masti buttermilk and Dahi and Stamina energy drink.

The Rs. 900 crore non carbonated beverages segment is going to be among the fastest growing segments in the next few years.While Amul as a whole has grown at about 16% last year, the new non carbonated beverage brands and milk products are expected to clock a growth of 20-25% in the next few years.

Amul, which with 37% market share is the biggest ice cream brand in the country, is also looking at garnering the upper end of the mass market with relatively higher end products such as sundaes and sugar free ice creams.

In a deviation from its strategy, Amul will look at entering product categories where it would be able to provide a substantial value addition and will also be able to make it difficult for others to introduce ‘me-too’ products.

44,000 hactare of vacant Railway land to benefit farmers, consumers

Reliance Retail, Pantaloon, RPG and Sunil Mittal owned Bharati, which recently signed a partnership agreement with the world’s biggest retailer Walmart, are some of the top business houses that are vying to exploit the 44,000 hectares of surplus Railway land for retail, reports PTI. This land under the control of the Rail Ministry is lying vacant across the country.

According to Ministry sources, the said initiatives from corporate houses, have come after the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s announcement that the surplus land would be made available for commercial purposes under Public-Private-Partnership. As reported earlier, retail business could benefit immensely by exploiting the assets owned by the Railways including using the vacant land for building budget hotels, cold storage, warehouses and farm outlets.

Railway Ministry is desirous to set up over 7,500 farm outlets at Railway Stations across the country, which will benefit farmers as they would be able to sell their products close to their fields. Railway’s vacant land could also be exploited for growing a wide range of food products, particularly horticulture products.

All of the multi brand retail majors like Reliance, RPG, ITC and Bharati have plans to provide farm fresh products to consumers at affordable prices as well as to offer better prices to farmers by eliminating the role of intermediaries and reducing wastage of parishables by setting up efficient collection centres and cold chain. Railways could become a major catalyst in achieving these objectives.

While Reliance Retail Ltd has an ambitious plans to provide fresh food and vegetables in its outlets, Railway’s surplus land could provide an opportunity to grow a wide variety of food products.

Hakoba plans five fold retail expansion; to open 250 stores

Garment retailing is an opportunity every one wants to capitalise on and Hakoba- the Rs. 22 crore, number one, mid-priced womenwear embroidered textile apparel brand, is no exception. Hakoba Lifestyles, which is owned by the country’s biggest embroidered garment, lace and accessories manufacturer Pioneer Embroideries Ltd., has decided to aggresively expand its retail presence by increasing retail stores five fold from 50 at present to 250 at an investment of Rs. 100 crore in the next 3 years. 65 of these stores will be operational in the next three months. During this period, the company will also expand its presence in multi brand outlets from 200 to 800.

Hakoba retail expansion will mostly be through franchisee route as 70% of the retail stores will be franchisee owned while the balance 30% will be company owned. The expansion should result in more than seven fold increase in sales in the next three years.

Over the next one year, Hakoba which boasts of rich a library of 40,000 designs, is looking at brand extensions in the menswear, home textiles and lingerie segments. To increase revenues from its apparel business, Hakoba recently entered premium womenwear segment with a new range of high priced sarees, dress material, etc. Hakoba has planned to sell its new range to be called Hakoba Premium or Hakoba Club only through its exclusive showrooms.

Hakoba is also planning to set up retail stores in the US, the UK and west Asian countries.

‘Zapak’ to open 600 gaming cafés in 200 cities

‘Zapak’ Digital Entertainment, an online gaming company and a part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group owned Reliance Entertainment Ltd, which recently launched a gaming portal, is planning to cash in on the gaming boom in the country. It has decided to set up a retail chain of more than 600 gaming cafes to be called  ‘Zapak Zones’, to reach out to 200 cities with a capacity of 100,000 kiosk seats in the next three years. These cafes will be based on a franchisee model. The first 10 Zapak zones in a test phase, according to media reports, will be launched in 10 major cities in the next three months. The company is targetting 10 million subscribers next year and 50 million subscribers within four years. The gaming cafes would provide the essential broadband access for its online offerings and help build Zapak communities.

Zapak has been named after a lot of research. It denotes speed, youth, fun and whacky stuff!

To finance these operations, Zapak will invest about Rs. 500 crore. This will not only cover setting up of the cafes but will also help enlarge the content portfolio, which will include uniquely Indian games, including mythological ones. Zapak wants to offer world class content. Zapak will also establish a development centre.

Reliance sees a great future for online gaming in India, which has more than 300,000 hardcore gamers. Internationally, gaming fetches more revenues than Hollywood and India too should be no exception in this regard. Reliance expects gaming in India to be also bigger than the Bollywood and anticipates the market to reach around Rs. 900 crore within a period of three years.

ITC to expand retail network; to open 54 new Chaupal Fresh outlets

ITC, the biggest tobacco products producer and the second biggest hotelier of the country, will expand its network of Chaupal Fresh outlets by opening 54 new outlets in the next three years. These outlets will be opened in certain metro and tier-I cities of the country. Presently, Chaupal Fresh has few Chaupal Fresh outlets operating in the cities of Pune and Hyderabad. Chaupal Fresh outlets, which offer fruits and vegetables, cater to the needs retail and bulk consumers.

Apart from establishing linkages with farm producers, ITC has also set up a complete cold chain, to ensure availibility of fresh farm products to consumers. While the cold chain will help reduce or eliminate spoilage and wastage of farm produce, direct linkage with farmers will help reduce a number of intermediary trading layers resulting better prices for both the producers and consumers.

ITC is also operating a chain of 11 Chaupal Sagar hypermarkets, which are located in semi urban centres. ITC has planned to expand this chain by taking the tally of such hypermarkets to 20. As per plans, every Chaupal Sagar outlet will be backed up by a network of about 40 e-chaupal kiosks, each of which in turn will be connected to a number of surrounding villages. Presently, there are 6,500 e-chaupal kiosks in operation in nine states, which are serving the needs of around 38,000 villages.

This was revealed by ITC Chairman Y.C. Deveshwar, while speaking to media perasons on the sidelines of the “Sustainability Summit: Asia 2006″ organised by CII in New Delhi on Tuesday, the 19th December, 2006.

Harsh Bahadur leaves Metro; Heading for Reliance?

Harsh Bahadur, Managing Director, Metro Cash & Carry India, according to a company statement, has resigned citing personal reasons. Bahadur, before taking up any new assignment, in March, 2007, will continue to serve the board till end February, 2007.

Although, Bahadur is said to be evaluating various options, speculation was rife a few days ago in the business media about he having been roped in to head the cash & carry format of retail business operations of Reliance Retail.

Bahadur, a retail industry veteran, had moved from RPG group’s retail business, six years ago, to set up Metro Cash & Carry’s retail business operations in India. Bahadur, a pioneer in the field, is credited with bringing about a revolution in the cash & carry business in India.

Metro C&C is the Indian arm of German retail major Metro AG, which adopted the cash and carry retail route to enter India. Wal-Mart has decided to follow the same entry strategy in India.

METRO C&C, it may be recalled, had started its operations in India from Bangalore in October 2003. Presently, Metro has two distribution Centres in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad. Bangalore centres, set up with an estimated investment of Rs. 200 crore, stock more than 18,000 food and non-food items and occupy more than 220,000 Square Feet of retail space, 40,000 Square Feet of which has been temperature controlled.
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IndiaRetailBiz is ‘numero uno’ among Growing Business Blogs on WordPress

18th December, 2006 is a momentous day in the life of this business weblog of your choice.

Today, IndiaRetailBiz achieved the distinction of being included in the list of “growing blogs” on the wordpress platform, which at the time of writing, is hosting a whopping 541,127 blogs.

IndiaRetailBiz has been ranked 55th on the list of 100 such “growing blogs,” which includes all categories of blogs.

In fact, IndiaRetailBiz ahieved the No.1 rank if blogs under “business” category alone were accounted.

But for your tremendous support to our effort, we could not have climbed up to this position, in just two months of our having launched this blog.

We are grateful to all our readers for their kind support in making this blog popular in such a short span of time.

Could we have asked for a better New Year Gift?

Carrefour drops Landmark, looks for local partners?

The five decades old, world’s second biggest retailer, Carrefour (pronounced: Cahr-uh-foor, meaning ‘cross roads’ in French), which till now was negotiating with the Dubai based Landmark group, for its entry into India, has decided to call off the talks and look for allying with local partner(s), according to a report published in the Economic Times.

This strategy makes imminent sense as Wal-Mart, for its India foray, has joined forces with Bharati, which through its telecom network connects to 28 million high spending consumers in every nook and corner of the country. Landmark, in comparison has neglible reach in India.

Carrefour, which employees 436,000 people, derives more than 85% of its $ 177 billion world wide revenues from its european operations, mainly operates in four major retail formats: Hypermarkets (58.8%), Supermarkets (17.8%), Hard Discount stores (8.6%) and Convenience stores (14.8%). Although, as much as 76.6% of its revenues are generated by value and mass retail formats Carrefour, according to sources, may delay its entry into these formats and initially focus on entering the country through convenient stores, each of which stores may occupy retail space of up to 3,000 square feet.

The French retail chain may also consider entering the country via the 51% FDI in single-brand retailing route. This way, the company may look at retailing a product in the Indian market after extending a private label to it.

Retail begins to attract top level creative talent

Retail business has begun attracting high level creative talent as well!

One of the country’s well known advertising professionals, 44 years old, Santosh Desai, President and COO, McCann Erikson, has decided to join the Kishore Biyani owned Future Group. He will be MD & CEO of the Future Brands — a soon to be launched Future Group company, which besides functioning as a custodian of private Future brand labels will also be supervising the licensing and promotion of about 50 of the Future Group Brands. According to a report in the Times of India, the business model of Future Brands will be based on what Martha Stewart does in the US.

Rama Bijapurkar, a leading marketing consultant, has also consented to join the board of Future Brands as chairperson. Both, Bijapurkar and Desai are alumni of IIMA.

While, Future Brands will promote and strengthen existing brands through effective advertising and promotion, it will recover a licensing fee from group companies for using the brands. While the retail rights will continue to reside with the group, in due course other rights may be licensed to markets and clients overseas.

Santosh Desai in an interview a few years ago had said that: “At the end of the day, a brand is something that impacts people’s lives. Our role is to connect brands with life.”

Time for property retailers to get organised!

The time, it appears, has come for property retailers (consultants?) to also get organised!

Yes. According to a PTI report, Jaydaad.com (an online property portal) has decided to set up a network of 600 offline, hi-tech, retail shops across the country. This network of 600 shops at Rs. 20 lakhs per shop will require an investment of Rs. 120 crore, 20% or Rs. 24 crore of which will be invested by Jaydaad, while the balance Rs. 96 crore will be invested by its franchisees. To strike property deals, these hi-tech shops will have facilities for personal inter-action, video conferancing and online connectivity.

While the first Jaydaad shop has already opened in Delhi, fifteen more are slated to be opened in January, 2007. Plans are also afoot to increase the number to these shops to 100 in just three months i.e. by March, 2007. Thirty of the franchisees out of these 100 have already been finalised. Jaydaad has targetted to strike deals worth Rs. 1,000 crore, by March, 2007,

Property buyers at Jaydaad would henceforth be not required to pay any commission for the transactions.

Jaydaad is presently doing property business through a highly popular web portal, which is claimed to be getting 1,50,000 hits every day, one third of which are from NRIs.

Prestige to add 100 new ‘Smart Kitchens’ in two years

The kitchen appliances major TTK Prestige, is planning to expand its present network of 156 “Smart Kitchen” stores, which offer entire range of Prestige products, to 250 stores, within a period of two years, reports the Economic Times. These outlets, which will be both franchisee and company owned, will entail an investment of Rs. 20 crore.

As a part of its growth strategy, TTK Prestige for the past three years has been aggresively pushing the concept of “Smart Kitchens.” While, it had 51 “Smart Kitchens” operating in March, 2005, it increased their number to 80 in March, 2006, which have now almost doubled to 156. Some of these stores have also been set up in rural areas.

TTK Prestige, a part of the Rs. 1,100 crore TTK Group, expects to increase its annual turnover by a healthy 30% to Rs. 300 crore, during this fiscal. TTK Prestige, which is primarily known for its Pressure Cookers, had sold 1.62 million cookers valued at Rs. 137 crores (60% of total sales turnover of Rs. 232 crore), during the previous year. It also sold 1.12 million pieces of non stick cookware valued at Rs. 35 crore. The balance turnover of Rs. 62 crore was contributed by other products like gas stoves and domestic kitchen appliances.

TTK Prestige is also very aggresive on new product introductions. While, it intoduced 54 new products during 2005-06, it has already introduced 52 new products in the past six months. It does not want to slow down on this momentum and has plans to introduce another 12 products in the next month. Besides, cookware products like pans, kettles and cookers, it will introduce non-cookware products like wet grinders, bone china and porcelein crockery.

Farm producers begin realising higher returns

As anticipated, organised retail has begun impacting lives of farmers, positively. According to a news report published in the Hindu Business Line, farm producers are getting better returns on vegetables, etc. produced by them. For example, ‘Rangers Farm’ — the farm produce procuring arm of ‘Reliance Retail’ is buying Bhindi (ladies fingers) at more than Rs. 10 per kilo against Rs. 7.50 (less 10% commission) per kg being offered by traditional vegetable wholesalers in Mandi. Most farmers are also able to save on time, effort and money as they are not required to transport their produce to the Mandis, which in some cases may even be located 40-50 kms away from their villages. Reliance, on the other hand, has set up its procurement centres nearby.

There is one catch, however. Vegetables before being accepted by the Reliance arm are required to be graded based on their quality and freshness. These graded vegetables are then sent to 17 ‘Reliance Fresh’ stores operating in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

Although, Mandi wholesalers refuse to admit any impact of Reliance and other chains on arrivals of farm products in the Mandis, there is no denying of the fact that a quite revolution is taking place in the country-side as more and more farmers have started to see the benefits of selling their produce directly to the retail chains. Efficient supply chains, backed by superior logistics management, have the potential of saving 30-35% in costs, particularly of perishable items like flowers and vegetables.

Lovable lingeries enters Retail; to open 125 exclusive shops

Lovable Lingeries, a part of Maxwell Industries, owned by Rs. 350 crore VIP Group, is foraying in the retail business with plans to open as many as 125 exclusive lingerie shops across the country. Maxwell, it may be recalled, had bought “Lovable” Ligerie Brand from Sara Lee of the USA in 1995.

Additionally, Maxwell will also have non exclusive multi product, multi brand, combo stores, which will also sell jeans and under garmements. Maxwell may also offer a few international fashion brands with whom it is already having negotiations. The first combo store of the company will become operational in Mumbai in early 2007. Maxwell has hands-on retailing experience as it is already operating 15 exclusive shops selling its Live-In jeans in southeren parts of the country.

Given the choice Maxwell will prefer franchisee route. However, as an alternative, it may also partner with developers of Malls. To finance its expansion plans Maxwell is looking at raising Rs. 300 crore in equity and debt.