Indian Retailer

HyperCITY Retail (I) Limited, today launched its much awaited store at Big Thane Shopping Centre, Ghodbunder Road, Thane. After the successful launch of four stores; in Mumbai, Vashi, Jaipur & Hyderabad; HyperCITY Thane is the fifth store in India and third in Mumbai.

Commenting on the launch of the Thane store, Mr. B S Nagesh, Vice Chairman, HyperCITY Retail said, “HyperCITY Thane is another milestone in our effort to bring about a retail revolution in India. HyperCITY provided Mumbai its largest & second largest hypermarket with Malad & Vashi, and now Thane’s largest as well. With Thane, HyperCITY has now over 3 Lac sq. ft. of retail space in Mumbai alone. HyperCITY Thane will enable customers to discover the next level of shopping; whilst continuing to provide unmatched affordability, guaranteed quality and a choice of products and service. HyperCITY Thane will also help customers save money by providing a “Free Bus Service”, which will pick & drop customers from their doorstep to HyperCITY & back. 2010 will see us launch more stores in Amritsar, and Bangalore.”

Spread across 1, 00,000 square feet of shopping area, the new HyperCITY store will provide Thaneites an international ambience where they can shop in comfort in a large, modern and exciting environment. HyperCITY Thane will carry a range of over 45,000 branded products catering to needs of the entire family. Shoppers will have the option to choose from a wide array of products in every category ranging from Fresh Produce, Food & Grocery, Home Care Products, Electronics & Home Appliances, Home-ware, Furniture, Apparel and Accessories, Lifestyle Products, Footwear and much more. At HyperCITY, one can get a taste of a scrumptious selection of breads, gourmet meats, seafood and foods from all over the world.

At HyperCITY, customers can ‘discover’ something new and exciting every time they walk into the store. The furniture section offers a range of stylish and contemporary furniture for your home at great value. Fully fitted concept rooms offer home solutions and ideas to customers. Sports enthusiast and health fitness conscious will find an exhaustive range of sports equipment from leading brands. With its wide selection of fashion clothing, accessories and footwear, HyperCITY offers everything that the customer needs to step out in style.

HyperCITY houses well-acclaimed international brands like Waitrose and Raleigh. The store has developed a suite of exclusive brands across all categories viz; Fresh Basket in Food, Ebano and Avorio in Home-ware, Maxit in Sports, Technix in Appliances, City, RiverInc in Fashion among others. They are available exclusively at HyperCITY which delivers increased value to customers by offering quality, uniqueness and price.

HyperCITY will provide ‘Free Bus Service’ to ferry interested customers free of charge from nearby residential societies in Thane to the store. The customers can avail of this Free Bus Service to the store for shopping and will be duly dropped back to the pickup point at set intervals of time, thus also contributing towards the eco-friendly initiative of ‘car pooling’ and helping the customers save money.

Now customers from Thane and beyond will have Discove

Retail chain Shopper's Stop plans to invest Rs 350 crore to set up 32 stores and augment its pan-India network, taking the total to 60 over the next five years, a top company official said.

"We have drawn up investment plans of Rs 200 crore for adding 18 new stores with about three million square feet in the next three-years period," President & CEO of Shopper's Stop Govind Shrikhande told PTI here.

The stores will be opened at Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Mysore, Mangalore, Aurangabad, Chandigarh and other Tier II cities, Shrikhande said.

A further Rs 150 crore has been earmarked to add 14 more stores but plans for this are still in the preliminary stage, he said.

At present, the retail chain has a network of 28 stores in 12 cities all across the country over an area of 1.88 million sq feet.

The fashionista dream is alive and kicking. But it’s no longer strictly elitist! With the US and Europe still grappling with recession,global luxury apparel retailers are eyeing markets like India, which has put itself firmly on the path of recovery.

Reworking their business model by focusing on affordable luxury, international majors are in talks with Indian players to target aspirational but value-conscious consumers.

While retail chain major Shoppers Stop is all set to launch Playboy brand of unisex wear, textile conglomerate S Kumars group is bringing in three international brands by the end of this fiscal.

Several high-priced international apparel brands were earlier forced to close shop due to sluggish demand. Few other brands like Jimmy Choo and Bottega Veneta changed hands from the Murjanis to Genesis Colors and Springfield in order to sustain growth.

Now, global brands are relying on Indian retailers’ understanding of the local market while Indian retailers are reworking the price in accordance with preference of the consumers.

“Indian retailers, tying up with international brands, are giving them an insight of the Indian market and taking the responsibility of marketing on franchisee basis, which is being preferred by the overseas brands,” says Rahul Mehta, president of Clothing Manufacturers Association.

Shoppers Stop, which had launched foreign brands like MAC, Mothercare and Austin Reed among dozen of global brands, and now plans to add about half-a-dozen international labels soon.

“We have recently introduced European jeanswear brand Mustang and will be launching Playboy apparel (Avinix Fashion) and luxury cosmetic brand Guerlain (Baccarrose),” says Govind Shrikhande, chief executive officer of Shoppers Stop. India is seen as a key growth market and is getting positive response from several international brands, added Mr Shrikhande.

S Kumars group, which tied up with Italian brand Oviesse this year, is in talks with other international brands. Nitin Kasliwal, managing director of S Kumars Nationwide (SKNL), said, “We are in advanced stage of talks with international apparel brands keen to tap the Indian market soon. Some of these brands are top-end luxury brands.” Brandhouse Retails, apparel retail arm of SKNL, will look after the retail expansion and marketing of these brands in the country.

Arvind Brands, which has a licence to market premium segment men’s wear brands such as Arrow and Gant, has launched ‘Izod’ in India, a label of global apparel firm Van Heusen. In line with others, Murjani Group, that brought brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Gloria Vanderbilt and French connection funky wears for youngsters FCUK, has also launched an on-line sales service for the brand.

Industry analysts contend that earlier the global luxury brands, which came in India, were highly priced for the Indian consumers. Now, in order to sustain in the market, most of them have started discount selling. The big brands Mega Carnival in Mumbai recently offered almost 80% on international brands like Roberto Cavalli, Givenchy, Davidoff, Chopard and Calvin Klein, to name a few.

“Market for luxury brands is yet to develop in a country like India, where demand is rising with consumers’ purchasing power,” said Tarun Joshi, managing director Brandhouse.

According to industry analysts, the market for luxury and premium brands in India is estimated at about Rs 6,000 crore- Rs 7,000 crore and growing at about 25-30%. However, luxury is still in its nascent stages as only 8-10% of the Indian population in metros is exposed to such brands. Overall, organised apparel retail contributed more than 35 % of the entire organised retail market aggregating over $ 60 billion.

Department store Shoppers Stop is planning to raise funds to acquire 32% in group firm and hypermarket chain Hypercity, a top official said. The company is looking at generating Rs 1 billion to Rs 1.2 billion rupees (USD 21.6 million to USD 26 million) for the acquisition, President and Chief Executive Govind Shrikhande said.

On Saturday, the company's board approved an issue of 4 million shares to institutional investors and also 4 million convertible warrants to founders, but did not specify how much it would be raising. Hypercity is the multi-brand retailing format floated by the founders of Shoppers Stop, which has a 19% stake in it and under an agreement is exercising the option to raise it to 51% by June next year.

Shoppers Stop, with a total retail area of 1.88 million sq ft, operates large format department stores, home stores and speciality stores like bookstore chain Crossword and M.A.C cosmetics stores through a retail agreement with Estee Lauder. It has distribution tie-ups with Britain's Mothercare Plc and German lifestyle and jeanswear Mustang in India.

Earlier this year, it dissolved its catalogue retailing venture with Britain's Home Retail Group as the venture did not perform up to expectations. Shoppers Stop has plans to open 15 to 18 stores in India over the next 40 months with an average investment of Rs 1 billion a year, Shrikhande said.

The company, which reported a Rs 120.6 million net profit in the September quarter versus loss year-ago expects its financial performance to improve in future quarters with an improvement in the retail climate. "Customer confidence is improving, rental rates are coming down and overall costs are also coming down," Shrikhande said.

Rents were down nearly 35-40% compared to a year earlier, while realty owners were now more ready to enter into revenue sharing agreements with tenants than previously, he said.

Shoppers Stop, along with Pantaloon Retail, India's largest listed retailer and Tata Group's Trent dominate the organised domestic Indian retail sector. Large overseas retailers such as WalMart, Tesco, Metro AG, have recently started operations in India with cash and carry ventures. Organised retail, growing at 25-30% annually, constitutes 6-7% of the total Indian retail market, estimated at USD 350 million to USD 400 million.

Retail players have reported better results for the September quarter as compared with the year-ago period.

Pantaloon Retail (India)'s numbers were in line with street expectations. Revenues increased 17.5%, driven by higher contribution from the higher-margin lifestyle stores. Same-store sales for value retailing increased by around 7% and for lifestyle retailing by about 11%. Operating profit margins increased 45 basis points (100 basis points make a percentage point) to 10.7%. Operating performance improved on account of staff-cost control and marginally higher gross margins. Net profit increased 21% to Rs 43.82 crore, helped by other income.

Shoppers Stop posted a net profit of Rs 8.67 crore against a net loss of Rs 18.26 crore last year. Profitability was helped by strong operating performance and a decline in depreciation and interest costs. Operating margins stood at 6.63% compared with negative margins last year. Operating performance was helped by much lower growth of 1.7% in total expenditure. Cost-cutting measures including closure of loss-making formats in the last few months resulted in a drop in operating expenses. Revenues increased 9%, driven by a 2.3% growth in same-store sales in departmental stores and 1.8% growth in all formats. Also, the number of customers entering the stores increased 5.3%.

Provogue's revenues increased 9%, primarily led by discount sales, even as same-store sales got back on the growth track. Provogue added three stores in the quarter.

Operating performance was good and margins expanded by 191 basis points to 9.78% last year. Other expenditure declined 6.8% as lease rentals of some properties were revised downwards, which boosted operating performance. Net profit increased 12%.

Trent's net profit increased to Rs 5.26 crore from Rs 3.53 crore last year. Revenues increased 10.2%, driven by more than doubling of other operating income. Total expenditure grew at a relatively slower pace of 6%, as advertising and sales promotion costs increased by just 1.8% and total raw material costs grew 4.6%.

Operating margins stood at 3.78% from almost nil last year.

Another one for Pantaloon India (Kishor Biyani's Future Group's flagship company) - 20% stake in menwear brand Turtle. Future Group is expected to announce taking 20% stake in menswear brand Turtle.

Turtle currently has 32 exclusive stores, 60 shop in shops (Central, Globus, and lifestyle stores like Shoppers Stop, Pantaloon and Lifestyle.)and more than 1,200 MBO's. The company plans to add 12 exclusive stores and 28 MBO's this fiscal. 80% revenue is generated through the MBO's and rest by the exclusive outlets and SIS's.