| From the Editor's Desk |  | |
Time for a gifting super-store?
India definitely has to be one of the top contenders for the country with the maximum number of festivals. Add to this social occasions like weddings, birthdays, naming ceremonies, corporate functions, etc and changing demographics reflected in the time-starved but cash-rich young population of today and one would think that the gifting industry would get more respect. While retailers and manufacturers in several categories thrive on gifting, there is no single modern retailer catering exclusively to this concept. Archies is the closest that comes to this, but it is a small format known primarily for greeting cards and trinkets. Perhaps it is time for a gifting super-store? Departments in the store could be laid out by occasion - namely, the Diwali section, the Valentine's day section, the Wedding gift section, etc.. Gift items could range from the simple greeting card to special offer consumer durables. Vacations and service-based gifts could be offered at the store as well, tying into the merchandise being sold. Are any entrepreneurs listening?
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Headline, Apparel, Accessories, Specialty, ..Food, QSR, ..Trends and Insight
| News: Headline, Apparel, Specialty, CDIT ... | | |
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Provogue has announced its results for the quarter ended September 2010. In Q2, it has reported net profit of Rs 9.7 crore, as compared to Rs 8.8 crore in the same period last year. Total income rose 18% to Rs 142.5 crore, as compared to Rs 121.3 crore it declared a year ago. In an interview, Nikhil Chaturvedi, MD, Provogue gave his perspective on the quarter gone by and the road ahead. Excerpts: |
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 | Rajeev Sethi, a New Delhi-based artist and scenographer, collaborated with Louis Vuitton to design Diwali-themed window displays. From November 5 to mid-January, all of Louis Vuitton's 454 stores, spanning five continents, will feature columns of trunks made of banana leaves, which will glow softly like lanterns and are "aimed to give passers-by the feeling of gaiety and festivity." This is the first time in the store's 156-year history that it will be celebrating a single festival on this scale. The store windows will reman unchanged throughout Christmas, a bold move in Western cities where shops compete for the best seasonal display. |
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Bestseller, the Denmark-based fashion house, has started a new outlet in Mumbai, wherein it offers three of its internal brands - Jack & Jones, Vero Moda and ONLY. The new outlet extends over an area of 15,000 sq.ft covering three floors and is located on Linking Road. According to Vineet Gautam, the country head of Bestseller Retail India, the design of the outlet resembles the design of high-street European outlets, with spacious as well as neat and clean fronts. |
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Leading retail brands are coming up at Mohali Junction in Sector 57, adjoining the Verka Chowk on the National Highway-21. Part of the Rs 500 crore mega project that envisages first-of-its-kind 18-storeyed air-conditioned Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT)-cum-commercial complex, the total space covered under the project is a whopping 10 lakh square feet. Of this, 5.5 lakh square feet is allocated for retail. Big Bazaar will open a mega departmental store, while McDonald's, Louis Vuitton and Dabur India have also tied up to extend their respective business chains from Mohali's tallest 225-foot-tall building. |
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Watch and jewellery maker Titan, which owns the Goldplus chain of jewellery, has decided to gold plate one Nano, the wonder car from Tata, as part of its campaign to celebrate 5,000 years of Indian jewellery. "Today a Nano car is an aspirational product for the Indian middle class. And Goldplus jewellery retail chain is focused on rural and tier II markets. We decided to marry these two, which would result in an ultra luxury product," said C K Venkataraman, Chief Operating Officer (Jewellery Division), Titan Industries. |
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White Tiger Private Ltd, a Delhi based laundry and dry cleaning brand plans to take its store count to 100 by the end of 2011. The new outlets will be through both company owned and the franchise route. Parul Mendiratta, Manager, Brand and Customer Care, White Tiger, said, "Presently, the company has a total of 60 stores on the 40:60 ratio, in which there is a majority of franchised outlets. The 40 new outlets will be opened mostly in the northern region of the country." |
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| News: Food & Grocery, QSR ... | | |
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 | Jumeirah Restaurants, the restaurant division of Dubai-based Jumeirah Group, has brought 'The Tasty Tangles' to Mumbai. Jumeirah Restaurants has partnered with Dish Hospitality Pvt Ltd to open the restaurant, which has a seating capacity of 86 persons. The food is predominantly Asian with Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean, Indonesian and Chinese cuisines. The Tasty Tangles also has an outlet each in Delhi and Bangalore. |
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The Indian restaurant industry is driven by the growing "eating out" factor. This calls for quick services, variety in cuisine and value for money. Restaurants are gearing for a massive expansion in seating capacity for the consumers. Fine dining is preferred only during the weekends. According to Subramanya Holla, proprietor, Udupi Krishna Bhavan, people like to go out and experiment with different kinds of food. This scene is prevalent across the country. Speciality restaurants and concept restaurants will be the future of the industry. |
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| Retail Trends | | |
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Tesco Hindustan Service Centre (Tesco HSC), the global services arm for Tesco, world's third largest retailer, announced the appointment of Dayanand Allapur as Head of Human Resources. Dayanand brings with him over 20 years of a well-rounded global experience in Human Resources, having lived and worked in UK, Australia, USA and India. |
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This Diwali, most of the retail players have a reason to smile, with sales growing between 50 to 80 percent, as compared to last year. According to Kumar Rajagopalan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Retailers Association of India (RAI), sentiments of Indian consumers are at an all-time high. "Last year, people were just coming out of recession; there were a lot of apprehensions about spending. This time things are a lot different," he said. On their part even the retailers have come out with different offers to attract the consumers to spend more, Rajagopalan pointed out. "Instead of the regular discounts, they have come out with more offers to give more value for money to the consumers," he said. |
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The next time Michelle Obama decides to go shopping for an assortment of Indian handicrafts and textiles, she need not plan a trip to the National Handicrafts and Handloom Museums, New Delhi. Instead, she can pick up her favourite handloom products by hopping over to the nearest Wal-Mart store in the United States. For, if all goes well with the AP prisons department's deal with the retail major, a steady stock of 'durries' (loom-made pieces which can either be used as blankets or as mats) will be exported to Canada and the United States soon, all made by the inmates of four central jails in the state. Preliminary talks are over to export this 'signature' product to Canada and the prisons department has now been told to put up the details of the durries on its website, for retail companies there to conveniently place orders. |
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 | Stationery retailing is no longer about stores with dusty shelves filled with notebooks, a few writing instruments, glue and staplers. The customer profile too has changed: The well-heeled executive is ready to spend anything up to Rs 2,000 on an exclusive diary or a luxury pen. The stationery retailing market in India is still largely (98.8 percent) characterised by mom-and-pop stores. Both from a manufacturing and a retailing space perspective, the category is still unorganised but there are a handful of brands that have gone national. Future Group and Reliance Retail are some of the players who have sensed an opportunity here and launched niche brands such as Staples and Office Depot. |
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| Retail Insight | | |
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Luxury in India: Charming the Snakes and Scaling the Ladders
CII and AT Kearney
The Luxury industry in India is no longer a new comer. Like many other industries in India, it is of great interest to both international and Indian players. International brands see India as an emerging luxury market which could become a significant part of their portfolio tomorrow. Indian companies also see the growth at the top end of the market as an opportunity to introduce premium offerings. This enthusiasm was reflected in the first moves of several iconic international brands in the last 5-7 years. Indian companies have also seen the opportunity and a handful of players are now very active in the space. Apart from luxury products such as watches, apparel, accessories, large Indian five star hotel chains, fine dining and spas, apart from luxurious houses, the latest luxury cars and yachts have expanded the definition of luxury. |
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