Retail insight as on 28th April 2010

April 28, 2010News for the Retail industry










Previous Issues



News: Apparel, Specialty, CDIT ...



Raghu Pillai to quit Reliance Retail by mid-year

Economic Times

Raghu Pillai, one of India’s best-known professionals in modern retail, will leave Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail by mid-year. Mr Pillai, who is a director on the board of the company and is designated as President and CEO (operations, strategy and business development), confirmed the development.







Chicco sets up shop & to also source from India

Fibre2fashion.com

Health and wellness product giant of Italy, ’Artsana SPA’ with a turnover of Euro 1.4 billion will source apparel and shoes for ’Chicco’, its baby care brand, from India, for sale at international level. The company has established its first branded Chicco outlet in Delhi last week, and plans to expand its retail presence in the country.





Wal-Mart ready for multi-branded retailing if rules eased

Economic Times

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, said it is ready to enter multi-branded retail segment in India within a year of any government decision to open up the sector to foreign direct investment. "In case the government decides to allow FDI into multi-branded retailing we will be happy to participate in it. We can set up our chain of stores in a matter of months...a maximum of one year," Wal-Mart India President Raj Jain told.





Cherokee Inc. adds Middle East countries to its agreement in India with Arvind

MarketWatch

Cherokee Inc. (CHKE 20.48, -0.14, -0.68%) , a leading licensor and global brand management company, announced today that it has amended its agreement with Arvind Retail Limited to include the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.







M&B Footwear has set foot in Amritsar

Images Fashion

M&B Footwear, has launched its exclusive retail outlet, Walk-in-M&B, in Amritsar.The rapidly expanding footwear retail chain has 38 EBOs, located in premium malls and high-street locations. Along with this they also have 97 shop-in-shop outlets in large format-stores like Central, Shoppers Stop, Westside and Pantaloon, as well as 60 factory outlets.







Reliance Communications, US firm tie up for application stores

Economic Times

Reliance Communications Ltd, India’s No. 2 mobile services firm, said it had entered into a pact with Silicon Valley-based GetJar for mobile application services. Reliance will offer GetJar’s catalog of more than 65,000 free mobile applications to its GSM as well as CDMA customers, the Indian operator said in a statement. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.





News: Food & Grocery, QSR ...



Glenburn Launches Small-Scale Export Service

World Tea News

Glenburn Tea Estate, based in Kolkata, India, has launched a wholesale export service geared toward retail merchants that want smaller quantities of its tea. Spokeswoman Husna-Tara Prakash said,"The Glenburn Tea Direct model allows us to sell smaller quantities to retail merchants and get the tea to them in a very short time-span, as compared to how our tea would normally have reached them."





Food giants turn veggie in Gujarat

Times of India

Big brands in the hospitality sector are modifying their business models when it comes to catering to vegetarian Gujarat. After Pizza Hut, Marriott and Dominos went veggie in the state, well-known chef Sanjeev Kapoor has jumped onto the bandwagon. The master chef’s chain of restaurants, The Yellow Chilli will open its first-ever all veg restaurant in Ahmadabad.







Brand Calculus launches Kiwi Kiss in India

indiaretailing.com

Brand Calculus, the master franchisee of Jus Booster Juice in India, has launched Kiwi Kiss Frozen Yogurt, a Canadian chain of frozen yogurt.Thechain opened its second outlet in Bangalore on April 27. The company’s first outlet is already present in Chennai. The company plans six other locations simultaneously for the brand.





Retail Trends





FDI stance on retail unchanged Anand Sharma

Moneycontrol.com

There is no change in India’s policy on opening up retail sector to more foreign direct investment (FDI) as of now, Trade Minister Anand Sharmasaid on Tuesday. The current policy allows 51% FDI in single-brand retail only.





Natural beauty

Livemint

What started with handmade soaps and shop-in-shop selling has now become a full-fledged business model, with 17 stand-alone Forest Essentials stores around the country. Their products can also be found in hotels including the Taj, Hyatt, ITC and Intercontinental. The Forest Essentials store at Palladium, Phoenix Mills, Mumbai.Executive Director Bedi speaks about the company and their future plans. Edited excerpts:





Hyderabad airport lays down steep terms for duty-free shops

Livemint

GMR Group has laid down fresh terms for firms looking to run duty-free shops at the Hyderabad airport, two people familiar with the matter said. GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (Ghial) will invite bids shortly for a duty-free operator.





Govt stops beer sales in department stores

Times of India

The next time you walk into a departmental store to buy beer, chances are you will not find any. All 115 L-53 licences that were given out over a period of one year or so have been suspended after more than a hundred complaints from various parts of the city poured in about rules being violated during granting of the licence that allows existing departmental stores to stock beer over a specified area only.





Retail Insight



From Retail to "Me-tail": Tomorrow Starts Today

Accenture

Tomorrow's consumers will be armed--and dangerous. As power moves inexorably from seller to buyer and retailing morphs into "Me-tailing", retail organizations will need much more than customer centricity and supply chain optimization to achieve high performance.