Retail Insight on January 18th 2010

January 18, 2010

News for the retail industry

Previous Issues

 

News

'100 Reliance Jewels outlets in 3 years' The Hindu Enthused by good sales in the past few months, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Lifestyle is planning to increase the number of Reliance Jewels outlets to 100 by 2013. The company has plans to add 14 more by this fiscal-end to its existing 10 outlets of Reliance Jewels.

7 For All Mankind enters India Images Fashion Maxxis Group, a retail & distribution platform is bringing to India 7 For All Mankind (7FAM), the iconic luxury denim brand referred to as Seven Jeans by fashionstas and stylists, and a favourite among the Hollywood elite. The first 7 For All Mankind store in India is scheduled to open at the Select Citywalk mall in south Delhi on January 20th.

Bharti-Walmart flagship brand faces opposition Livemint Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which recently launched several of its global private labels in India, through joint venture Bharti-Walmart Pvt. Ltd, is facing opposition to efforts to register its flagship brand Great Value (GV). Bharti-Walmart, the US retailer's joint venture with Bharti Enterprsies Ltd, had filed in 2008 about a dozen applications to trademark Great Value's logo: 'GV' in a circle emblazoned with 'Great Quality. Low Prices.'

V-Mart reaches the mark of 57 Images Fashion V-Mart Retail Ltd, one of India's fastest growing value-retailers, launched two more stores in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The company has a chain of medium sized hypermarket format retail stores, known for selling 'Sabse Sata Sabse Achcha' products. One of the stores, opened in Sultanpur district is V-Mart's 56th store in India and the 11th in the state.

Costa Coffee restructures its Indian expansion strategy ImagesFood.com British coffee chain Costa Coffee has reworked its India strategy to turn profitable and expand its footprint. The new strategy involves closing unprofitable locations, segmenting strategy for different locations, changing the look and feel of outlets and customising the menu to better suit the Indian palate.

FBD: Indian retail major Subhiksha exploring option to sell stake FoodBizDaily.com (press release) Indian retail major Subhiksha is currently exploring option to sell the company's stake to the potential buyers in order to restructure company's corporate debt. Subhiksha was to shut its network of 1600 supermarkets across India due to acute financial crunch.

VVF pips Reliance Retail to acquire 3 Henkel brands Economic Times Mumbai-based VVF Ltd beat Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail to acquire three brands from detergent and home care company Henkel India, namely Aramusk and Moloy soaps and Mahabringol hair oil. The move comes three months after VVF, the makers of Doy and Jo soaps and one of the world's largest contract manufacturers of bar soaps, bought out Henkel's plant at Tiljala, Kolkata.

Wipro to buy Target India centre with its 2000 staff Deccan Herald IT giant Wipro is all set to buy US-based Target Corporation's India captive technology centre located in Bangalore.  The $65 billion Target owns and runs 1,744 stores in the US and is the second largest general merchandiser in the country.

Shoppers Stop to up stake in Hypercity mydigitalfc.com Retail major Shoppers Stop will pay around Rs 120 crore to its promoters K Raheja Corp to make HyperCity a subsidiary. Shoppers Stop plans to raise funds via a right issue of shares, which will help, pay for upping its stake in HyperCity to 51 per cent.

US footwear firm Crocs to expand India biz Business Standard US-based premium footwear brand Crocs Inc today said it will expand its India business by more than doubling the number of exclusive stores in the country this year. The company, which entered the India market in 2007 under a joint venture with Chogori Footwear, also said it is looking to increase its presence in the multi-branded outlets with an eye to tap the market in Tier II cities, besides foraying into mid-priced segment.

Jubiliant Foodworks fixes IPO price band at Rs 135-145 Business Standard Jubiliant Foodworks, which operates largest pizza chain Domino's in domestic market, today fixed the price band for its proposed initial public offering (IPO) at Rs 135-145 per share. Jubiliant plans to sell 2.2 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each for a cash at a price to be exercised through a 100 per cent book-building process. The issue opens on January 18 and closes on January 20.

ABRL to add more hyper-markets; eyes turnover of Rs1,600 in FY10 Moneylife Personal Finance Magazine Aditya Birla Retail Ltd (ABRL), India's second biggest supermarket operator, is eying a total turnover of Rs1,600 crore this fiscal and hopes to turn earnings (interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) or EBITA, positive by 2012. The Aditya Birla group's multi-format store company is also ramping up its hyper-market brand 'more.MEGASTORE' and would soon launch three new stores at Thane, National Capital Region (NCR) and Hyderabad.

Retail Trends

Retailers offer freebies, discount to spur sales Financial Express This year, the Republic Day falls soon after weekend and top retailers are hiking their advertising and marketing spends by an additional 30% to 50% on offering huge discount offers, freebies to woo customers and spur sales.

Retail giants bullish on private labels Financial Express With rising demand for cost-effective private labels and brands, branded retail giants are betting big on increasing consumption of private labels along with brands by launching new sub brands, apart from expanding the product portfolio under private brands. The demand for private labels and brands grew 40% during Q2 2009-10, experts say.

India: Food processing industry growth linked to retail FreshPlaza Growth of food processing sector in India is directly linked to growth in retail industry, 14 percent of the growth that comes for the food processing industry is directly linked to retail, according to Subodh Kant Sahai, India Minister for Food Processing Industry. The political mindset also has to undergo a transformation in viewing Retail business as directly benefitting the farmers and providing opportunities for Agri-business.

Pricey pizza Business Standard As the frequency of eating out or preference for fast food increases, players in the take-away or home-delivery space should benefit. Amongst the leading players is Jubilant FoodWorks (JFL), which operates pizza chain Domino's in the domestic market. JFL has a master franchise agreement with global pizza giant Domino's which extends till 2024.

Retail Insight

The Collaboration Game: Building Value in the Retail Supply Chain Booz & Co Abstract: Retailers have historically maintained an adversarial relationship with consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, their primary suppliers. Negotiations over price, promotional support, and marketing budgets, among other persistent areas of disagreement, often result in damaged relationships and minor gains, only to have the fights resume the following year. But companies that want to build holistic relationships with selected suppliers across the value chain, which can result in higher revenue and lower costs than the old haggling habits, must pursue collaboration and cross-functional participation.