IndiaRetailBiz

While, casual, quick food, pizza specialist Domino’s is pumping in Rs 200 crore over the next three years to increase its existing 207 outlets to around 500 outlets, Pizza Hut — another equally famous US-based counterpart– is investing about Rs 45 crore to add 30-odd stores to its existing 139 stores over the same period to expand into metro and large cities across India.

Pizza Hut will also put an additional investment of Rs 50 crore on brand transformation which involves the introduction of enhanced dine-in concept in the casual dining segment. The retail chain has planned to expand the concept of ‘enhanced dining’ to all its 110 Pizza Hut ‘restaurant stores.’ The concept, announce last month, has already been in implemented by the restauranter in Mumbai. The company’s involves the launch of an at its restaurant stores.

“We want to set and change the standards of our stores keeping pace with the change in taste of our customers,” said Anup Jain Director for Marketing Pizza Hut.

Anup Jain is expecting to increase the sales over next three years by 25% after the planned brand transformation and expansion of retail network.

Pizza Hut is one of the flagship brands of Yum! Brands, Inc., which also owns world famous brands like KFC, Taco Bell, A&W and Long John Silver’s. Pizza Hut is perhaps the world’s largest pizza chain with over 12,500 restaurants spread across 91 countries.

In India, Pizza Hut was launched in 1997 from Bangalore. Currently, it operates 139 restaurants across 36 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chandigarh.

Pizza Hut is one of the first international pizza which keeping with local sensitivities of its customers in some parts of India has even opened purely vegetarian dine-ins at Chowpatty Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Surat. These restaurants also serve Jain menus.

Nature’s Essence Pvt. Ltd., a New Delhi-based manufacturer, exporter and importer of a wide array of skin, hair and body care products, is foraying into organised retail. It plans to set up a chain of 100 beauty salons cum sales centres at an investment of Rs 30 crore, two-thirds of which will come from franchisees.Following a mixed ownership model of company owned and franchisee stores, the brand hopes to launch about 25 owned and 75 franchisee stores across the country over a period of nine-odd months by mid-2009. While the company plans to open 6 to 7 store in each of the metro city, it hopes to set up 75 franchisee owned stores in tier I and II cities.

“We would be opening 100 stores, including 25 company owned and 75 franchisee outlets by middle of 2009. The first three stores would come up in Delhi by September and the rest would follow across the country,” said Saurabh Nanda, Executive Director, Nature’s Essence, while speaking to PTI.

The beauty products player post retail expansion and export initiatiaves is aiming to increase its existing turnover of Rs 35 crore to 100 crore. The turnover is also targeting a further five-fold jump in its sales to Rs 500 crore by 2010-11.

“This year we are aiming for an annual sales of Rs 100 crore, up from the Rs 35 crore last fiscal, and take it to Rs 500 crore in three years,” said Nanda. “We are hoping for a sale of Rs 15-20 lakh from each store by end of one year period,” added Nanda.

Reliance Retail, among the largest retailers of India, according to an FE report, is believed to be considering to axe 3,000 of the 20,000-odd jobs, or around 15% of its employee strength, over the next few months.

This move, though denied by the group, comes just two years after it began rolling out retail chains in November, 2006, from Hyderabad. The retail chain, which currently operates through 11 verticles, has unveiled 650-odd stores, since inception. Most of these stores are part of its flagship, food & grocery, convenience chain Reliance ‘Fresh.’

The ‘rightsizing’ exercise of the company will mostly affect IT and contractual personell working with the retail outfit. In fact, IT personnel could account for 1,000 of the 3,000 personnel who may are being considered for handing over the ‘pink’ slip by the company.

The company is also looking at rationalising pay packages in tune with other group companies, says the report. It may be recalled that during initial euphoria surrounding the retail sector, Reliance had offered hefty compensation packages to people from relevant and related disciplines.

The Body Shop (TBS), a global manufacturer and retailer of naturally inspired, ethically produced beauty and cosmetics products, which operates over 2,100 stores in 55 countries, with a range of over 1,200 products — all animal cruelty free, and many with fairly traded natural ingredients– is now getting ready to vigorously expand its footprint in several large and small cities of India.

Founded in the UK in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick, the brand considered to be a fine example of societal marketing concept, was acquired by L’Oréal in 2006.

Currently, the premium beauty brand operates 22 stores across eight cities in India. The Body Shop is currently operating a chain of retail stores through franchisee arrangement with Planet Retail Holdings in the cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai and Pune. It is looking at launching two new stores in Chennai and Hyderabad.

“Due to the delay in the launch of new malls in Hyderabad and Chennai, our store launches got postponed. We are all geared up to get feedback from these two cities,” said Sameer Prasad, COO of Planet Retail Holdings.

The brand is operating a store even in a relatively small city of Ludhiana. Ludhiana. Explaining the rationale of opening this store, Sameer Prasad said, “Ludhiana has the highest per capita ownership of Mercedes Benz cars in the country. It was a wise decision and we are getting good response from the city”

The brand is also planning to add 5 to 10 more stores by the end of this year.

To address modern day lifestyle concerns like stress and anxiety,the retailer has recently launched a new  range of Wellbeing products.

“For most of us, everyday stress and anxiety has become an inescapable part of modern life. Our new range of products provides apt solution to this problem,” said Stella Law, Asia-Pacific product head of TBS.

“Each range contains effective active natural ingredients based on traditional herbal remedies to address everyday concerns,” added Stella.

The new range comprises four categories - total energy, deep sleep, gently purify and divine calm - containing natural ingredients like lavender, camomile, eucalyptus, jujube and date, and has 19 products comprising body washes, body gels, essential oils, soothing shower gels, body moisturisers, pillow and body mists, clay masks, rejuvenating bath soaks, milk bath powders and more.

“We will focus on retail expansion and building the brand over the next few years with the objective of delighting the consumer and providing him easy access to the brand.” — Subhinder Singh Prem, Managing Director, Reebok India.

Reebok, the global sports footwear and apparel major, which commands around 51% of the country’s sports wear market, is going in for a massive three-fold expansion of its Classics retail stores format. It has decided to add 55 new stores to the existing 20 stores in the next seven-odd months by the end March, 2009, says a PTI report.

Reebok India, it may be recalled, has also sponsored King Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders IPL Cricket team as well as has launched an exclusive web site for exclusive use cricket enthusiasts.

The expansion plan of the company comes in the wake of its foray into the lifestyle segment. The company is targeting young people, 18 years of age onward with a strong inclination towards fashion, fitness and sports for the brand.

Currently, the brand is operating stores in the key cities of NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Pune.

The brand, which is present in the international markets since many years, would carry ‘edgy’ and ’stylish’ collections from the domain of Reebok International. These among others would include The Scarlett Johannsons Hearts collection, DGK skate, NFL and the Evolution range. Apart from international collections, the company has also planned to introduce Indian origin collections like the Dance inspired collection being promoted by Bipasha Basu, Dhoni 7 collection designed with inputs from MS Dhoni himself and Fish Fry for Reebok designed by Manish Arora.

While the company intends to make a few of the lifestyle collections available in both Performance and Classics stores, the high-end lifestyle and fashion collections will be made available only in Reebok Classics stores.

“All over the world, sports and style are merging giving rise to a whole new trend… Reebok Classics stores present a unique, classy and trendy range to the consumer which is characteristic of energy through its designs, colours, motifs, fabric and inspirations,” says Prem, the company’s Managing Director.

“On October 30, all public areas of The Dubai Mall will be open to customers at the same time, creating a retail event unlike anything ever seen in the region. The Dubai Aquarium and Discovery Centre, the Olympic-sized Dubai Ice Rink, the world’s largest indoor Gold Souk and hundreds of retailers will open simultaneously giving visitors several retail and leisure options.” — Mohamed Ali Alabbar, Chairman, Emaar Properties.

The Dubai Mall, the world’s premier lifestyle destination, has decided to open its doors to public in about two months on the the 30th October, 2008. The Dubai Mall– a shopping structure of epic proportions– located in the heart the prestigious Downtown Burj Dubai, will be one of the largest malls in the world, offering an over all space of 12.1 million sqft with gross internal floor area of 5.9 million sqft and gross leasable area of 3.77 million sqft.

The Dubai Mall– an integral part of the Downtown Burj Dubai development– has been dubbed as a shoppers’ paradise, as it will offer an unparalleled retail mix combined with world-class dining, entertainment and leisure attractions that will revolutionise the concept of the shopping mall experience. It will house two anchor department stores, over 120 food and beverage outlets and over 1,200 retail outlets.

Among its many attractions, The Dubai Mall will also have the world’s largest single volume Aquarium featuring a 180-degree walkthrough tunnel and the world’s largest indoor Gold Souk. There will be a Fashion Island, a 440,000 sq ft precinct dedicated to haute couture. There will also be a ‘Kidzania’– an  innovative children’s ‘edu-tainment’ concept and an 85,000 sq ft SEGA Entertainment Complex.

For the convenience of visiting shoppers, the mall has created spaces for parking of over 14,000 cars. For direct access of shoppers, the mall will have also have a dedicated bridge from Sheikh Zayed Road.

No wonder, “The Dubai Mall,” which happens to be a flgship property of the Emaar Malls Group, is expecting to attract a large number of customers in the very first year of trade.

The number of customers visiting the mall on an average may reach around one lakh (0.1 million) every day or over 30 million every year.

The opening date of the mall has been fixed so as to make it coincide with an extended retail season in the region. This period will be marked by the UAE National Day, Eid Al Adha, New Year and the Dubai Shopping Festival.

“During last four months, we have opened outlets in Jammu, Panipat, Surat, Baroda, Nashik, Trivandum, Meerut and Patiala. While earlier, 70 per cent of our business used to be in metros and mini-metros, now the ratio is 50:50 between big cities and smaller Tier II and III cities.” — Dev Amritesh, Senior Vice-President (Marketing), Domino’s Pizza India.

Domino’s Pizza, one of the world’s biggest quick food chains known for its home delivered pizza products, is going in for a massive expansion in India.

The Michigan (US)-based quick food company, which sells more than one  million pizzas worldwide every day, is known as the company that pioneered the pizza delivery business. Domino’s is currently operating over 3,500 stores outside of the United States in over 60 international markets.

The global chain has drawn out a plan to invest Rs 200 crore (around $50 m) in the  next three years to more than double the number of its retail outlets from 207 across 45 cities at present to 500 across 75-80 cities by 2010-11. It will, thus, be adding another 300-odd outlets in the three years’ period and bringing a few more tier II and III cities within its focus. During the current year, there will be an addition of 43 outlets at an investment of Rs 80 crore and expansion of its footprint from 45 cities to 55 cities across the country.

Domino’s has also decided to go in for an brand revamp exercise and has set aside Rs six crore for expenditure on a new advertising and marketing campaign spread over the next three months. This will help the company to reposition its brand.

The company, which dominates home delivery market by virtue of two-third of its sales in the country coming from this segment, is changing its famous but comical tagline of “Hungry Kya?” to a more serious “Khushiyo Ki Home Delivery.” It has also recently launched a new ‘Pizza Mania’ for just Rs 35 to bring home the ‘value for money’ concept.

“As a category leader, we believe it is our responsibility to demonstrate that we care for our customers. The brand positioning would highlight this aspect when inflation and price rise have deeply affected everybody,” said Amritesh.

Currently, Domino’s is enjoying 42% share of the Rs 550 crore organised pizza maket. The company is expecting to increase the share to 45% of the expanded market during the year after stores expansion and repositioning of its brand. The market itself is expected to go up to Rs 700 crore this fiscal.

“After the entry of private retailers in the market, our sales have gone up and consumers can now compare our performance with other players. Behaviour of the staff and availability of products have definitely contributed a lot in improving Supplyco’s performance.” Yogesh Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation.

Supplyco, the retail chain of the state government owned Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation, which was set up as a counter to the competitition arising from private retail players, has begun to delivering good results in terms of both sales and growth.

Supplyco, a Kerala government venture, operates over 1,200 retail outlets and  deals in packed tea, coffee, and consumer goods, essentials, drugs and organises fairs during festivals like Onam, Christmas and Ramzan.

The retailer is looking at growing more than 20% by increasing its 2007-08 sales of Rs 1,235 crore to Rs 1,500 crore this year. Although, Supplyco is not driven mainly by the objective of making profits, it may surprisingly also double its last year’s profit of Rs 9 crore to a decent double digit number this year. The retailer is also confident of achieving good performance during the Onam season (August- September), when it expects to increase its sales of Rs 131 crore last year to Rs 175 crore this year.

Yogesh Gupta, the corporation’s Chairman and Managing Director, has attributed the good performance to the retailer’s strategy of what he likes to call as AQPBL (availability, quality, pricing, behaviour and location).

The performance boost for the corporation has also meant looking beyond the shores of Kerala. The corporation is mulling over attracting a large number of Malyalees living in Malyasia and the Gulf region. According to an HBL report, Supplyco would like to also set up its outlets in places like Mumbai, where it can showcase the products of the state like handicrafts and textiles, among others.

“We would be covering all the tier II and III cities and all the stores would be company owned.” — Trent Official.

While, Birlas are getting into super-premium, luxury fashion apparel and accessorie segment through a new retail venture under “The Collective” brand name, Trent Ltd, one of the two retailing arms of the cars to chemicals Tata group, is foraying into value apparel retailing. The branding of the format has not been done as yet.

The new format will cater to the needs of price conscious low-income customers with limited disposable incomes in smaller cities and towns.

The value apparel format, like its counterpart lifestyle format, will also heavily depend on private labels. “In value-based retail, people are not necessarily brand conscious, unlike in high-end retailing. We would be developing our own brands in this segment,” said an official.

Trent, known for its lifestyle, department store format Westside flagship retail chain, recently came into limelight with signing a franchisee agreement with the world’s UK-based third largest retailer Tesco, hopes to unveil its value apparel store before March, 2009. The first pilot store measuring about 16,000 sqft of trading space will come up at Kalyan in the Thane district of Maharashtra.

While, sourcing for most of the products has already been locally tied up, for some of the merchandise for this chain Trent may in fact obtain resources of Tesco, according to a Business Line report.

Madura Garments, a part of Kumar Mangalam Birla-led AV Birla Nuvo, which has established several apparel brands across value to lifestyle segments like Peter England, SF Jeans, Van Huesen, and Allen Solly, is now foraying into luxury fashion segment.

Madura Garments Lifestyle Retail Company, a wholly owned subsidiary, is looking at setting up a retail chain of luxury fashion stores called ”The Collective.” The luxury fashion chain, according an ET report, will set up a dozen-odd stores beginning with metro cities of Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Birlas are planning to invest Rs 275 crore in the new venture that will see 35 high-end apparel and 20 accessories brands being introduced to high-end fashion conscious consumers in the country. The luxury chain will be counting men in the 30-45 age bracket, and income ranging from $50,000 to $200,000, among its customers, as a men’s suit at its stores at upper band may even carry a price tag of Rs 1 lakh.

The new retail initiative of the group will bring super-premium denim brands like “7 For All Mankind” and “True Religion” being launched for the first time in India.

The eight years old Los Angeles-based “7 For All Mankind” is a super premium jeans brand that among others is worn by leading Hollywood celebrities Angelina Joile, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, and Ryan Reynolds. “True Religion” which oridinally was started in 2002 to redefine premium denims is today known not only for its denim, but also for its knit and woven sportswear, such as t-shirts, western shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants, all of which have a vintage feel. The brand has today also branched out today in accessorieas like Footwear, Headwear, Handbags, Swimwear and Fragrance.

Beyond denims, The Collective will also offer world famous brands like Armani Collezioni, Versace Collection, Z-Zegna, Cheap Monday, Rock & Republic and footwear and accessories brands like Puma Black, Mandarina Duck, Bally and Church’s Footwear.

The Collective has also tied up for the distribution of brands like Kenneth Cole (designer clothing including premium silk ties), Ted Baker (UK-based designer shirts) and Valentino (sun glasses) brands to the country.

The Collective has roped in Jean Claude Beguine to set up salons within its stores. It has also assigned the Us-based Sonodea to decide on the music for the store.