Marks and Spencer Reliance India, a joint venture between Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Retail and UK-retailer Marks and Spencer Plc, intends to open 15 stores in two-years, mainly in the metros, a top company official said.
“We are looking to open 10-15 stores in the next two years mainly in the metros. We’re aiming to open larger stores which will showcase a fuller range of our product catalogue,” said Marks and Spencer Reliance India, Head of Marketing, Nandini Sethuraman.
In order to display the wide range of product catalogue properly, the company desires to open spacious stores approximately 10-15.
Marks and Spencer announced plans to open 50 stores in India in the next five years when it formed the joint venture in 2008. The retailer said the target remains.
“Our plan is to open larger stores between 15,000 sq ft and 35,000 sq ft. By 2014, our aim is to have 50 stores. It all depends on momentum and right locations,” Sethuraman said.
Currently, the company has 18 stores across India in destinations such as Delhi, Amritsar, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai with an average size of about 5,000 sq ft to over 22,000 sq ft in conjunction with Reliance Retail.
Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore to add 3 million sqft retail spaces in 2010-11, a top company official said on Monday, 28th June.
Reliance Retail recorded sales of Rs 4,500 crore in the financial year ended March 2010. It operates nearly 1,150 stores in 86 cities across 14 states which span just over 4.5 million sqft space across India. In 2009-10, the company added around 1 million sq ft retail space.
The company has also focused greatly on its plan of luxury brands to India with Reliance Brands. The last two months have seen the launch of Hamleys and Diesel stores. Reliance Retail is now in talks with US fashion brand Kenneth Cole and Italian bag maker Mandarina Duck to open their exclusive outlets in India.
“We will add around 30 hypermarkets and 250 speciality stores this financial year. Around 1.5 million sqft will be added in hypermarkets while 1.5 million sqft will be in speciality stores and Reliance Fresh”, a Reliance official said.
“The company will focus on expanding Reliance Mart hypermarkets and its specialty retail formats – Reliance Trend, Reliance Digital, Reliance Jewels, Reliance Footprint, Reliance Time-Out and Reliance Wellness.” said the official.
This follows in wake of the Reliance Industries Chairman, Mukesh Ambani’s words at the 36th AGM claiming that Reliance Retail, Reliance Industries’ (RIL) retail arm will see a 10-fold growth in revenue over the next five years to become a Rs 45,000-crore entity.
Strategically located at Sarabha Nagar, Flamez Shopping Mall cum Multiplex, Ludhiana, is the first operational shopping mall, multiplex and hypermarket in all of Punjab. The first 4-screen PVR multiplex of Punjab and the first Reliance hypermarket are both located in Flamez Mall. Reliance Footprint and Reliance Kitchenware are also present in Flamez. Since the start of operations (Aug/Sept’07), Flamez has become the ultimate shopping experience for Ludhiana residents.
The premium location and the excellent brand mix of vanilla tenants, PVR 4 Screen Multiplex (Anchor1), Reliance Hyper Market (Anchor 2), Reliance Footprint (Anchor 3) and Reliance Kitchenware makes this mall successful in regards to increasing footfalls.
Spread over 175,000 sq ft, Flamez mall has become an ultimate neighborhood family destination that offers facilities for leisure, entertainment, shopping and eating out, complete with a food court and fine dining restaurant.
Reliance Retail Ltd (BOM:500325) plans to launch Reliance Jewels outlet in Kolkata by October. Reliance Industries shares closed tad down 0.03 per cent from the previous close on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
Biju Kurien, president and chief executive officer of Reliance Lifestyle was quoted by the media saying that the firm has around 18 jewellery stores operational in the country mainly in the north, west and south. The company plans to expand in the regions they are already present and plan to launch their first jewellery store in Kolkata by October.
Reliance Lifestyle is a division of Reliance Retail. The company plans to add around 17 Jewels outlets by Mar 2011. Each of the Jewels outlets spread over 3,000-5,000 square feet.
Reliance Retail, which is owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, also plans to more than double its number of Time-Out stores by Mar 2011.
Currently there are 8 Time-Out stores operational in the country and we plan to take it to 24 stores by March 2011, Kurien said.
Each Time-Out store spreads over an area of 7,000-12,000 square feet and houses books, music, stationary, toys and gifts. Reliance Retail currently has 14 formats operational across the country.
Hamleys, a 250 year-old toy retailer of the UK, on Thursday opened its first store in Mumbai in a franchise agreement with Reliance Retail, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reliance Industries. The tie-up is valid for 20 years. The company plans to invest Rs 150 crore in the next seven years to set up 20 more stores across the country, including tier-II cities.
The size of the Mumbai store is around 21,000 square feet, while the one being opened in Chennai within six months will be close to 10,000 sqft, according to Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive officer, Reliance Lifestyle division. The Indian division of Hamleys, though, is going to be headed by Sudhir Pai.
Hamleys is based in London and is one of the world’s largest toy companies. Its flagship store located at the Regent Street is a five-storey building spread over 54,000 sqft. It is considered one of London’s major tourist attractions.
The first store has seen an investment of Rs 6 crore. Kurien explains that the investment has been significant as far as setting up this store is concerned. “The hard investment for the stores in terms of occupying retail space is going to be made by Reliance Retail. As for the soft investment in terms of store design and staff training, it will be done by Hamleys.”
Reliance Retail in 2008 had said it was in talks with the UK toy retailer. The reason for the delay, as Kurien reckons, is “finding the right location for the store”.
Moreover, the company is also looking at spending around Rs 50 lakh on advertisement for the first store.
The total organised toy market is India is around Rs 1500 crore. It caters to about 30 crore kids upto 15 years of age. Reliance Retail will be looking to have a “sizeable” share in it.
The firm will open 20 stores in India over the next six to seven years in partnership with Reliance Retail, which has a 20-year-franchise agreement with Hamleys.
Hamleys will invest around Rs1.25bn (£18.3m) in the scheme and will open its next store in Chennai in the next few months, having already opened a 21,000 square feet store in Mumbai.
“The organised retail toy market in the country is close to Rs15bn (£220.5m) and Reliance Retail will be looking to have a sizeable share in it,” Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive – lifestyle, Reliance Retail, commented.
Reliance Retail will stock Hamleys merchandise, but also products that are exclusively available to the UK retailer.
Apart from stocking Hamleys merchandise, Reliance Retail will stock products that are exclusively available to the UK retailer. Other global brands from companies such as Mattel and Funskool will also be available at these outlets.
Reliance Retail will soon pilot the retail venture of Office Depot and open the first Hamleys toy store as the Mukesh Ambani-led retailer beefs up its portfolio and expansion plans. Its offerings under the lifestyle umbrella range from books & music, apparel, toys and opticals to jewels and office supplies. ET caught up with Reliance Retail’s president & chief executive-Lifestyle Bijou Kurien for an exclusive interview. Edited Excerpts:
Are the multiple verticals under the Lifestyle division operating profitably?
Both Reliance Time Out, which will grow to 20 stores by 2011, and the relatively smaller-store-sized Reliance Jewels, which will have 50 stores by 2011, broke even last year. Almost half of our 46-odd optical retail stores Vision Express have also broken even. The Marks & Spencer brand has now been repositioned to compete in the mid-market segment in India. We intend to open bigger stores of around 15, 000 to 20, 000 sq ft where merchandise will be extended from apparel to personal care, home ware and accessories. India will also account for a larger sourcing component for Marks & Spencer.
Over a year after joining hands with US-based Office Depot how has the JV progressed?
The Office Depot JV currently operates through a business-to-business relationship where we’ve focused on the small, medium and large office supplies space so far through our joint acquisition of eOfficePlanet, a supplier of office products and services to corporates. We are testing our first retail foray through an Office Depot store in Bangalore.
Has the lifestyle division also set its sights on smaller cities yet?
Reliance Jewels is positioned as a mid-market retailer which doesn’t cater to the everyday low-priced diamond jewellery segment but targets the occasion (wedding, births etc) and adornment-led jewellery segments. Given the fact that the Reliance brand is strong, we’ve positioned some formats such that it can tap into the potential of rural retail without creating a separate brand for smaller markets like Dhanbad and Jamnagar. Vision Express also holds relevance because like jewellery there are few national optical retailers and sight correction is a need that cuts across population strata.
The lifestyle division will also make inroads into smaller cities by co-locating with Reliance Hypermart’s roll out. Classically, hypermarkets are designed in a manner where the area in front of the cash till is allocated for several independent stores. So, in areas such as Rajahmundry and Kolhapur we’ve opted for co-location opportunities for Reliance Jewels and Vision Express with the hypermart. From a cost point of view too, drumming traffic towards independent formats and affordability of standalone rent often becomes a challenge within smaller cities.
How did the discretionary-purchase driven Reliance Time Out perform in a year when consumer sentiment took a beating?
Time Out was the only format within Reliance Retail that grew substantially in the slowdown period. Although, the sheer market size of our offerings is only around Rs 10, 000 crore, as the categories are highly underpenetrated, sales can be strengthened by creating occasions that lend themselves for purchases. This is why we had 200 events across three of our stores within 11 months.
We’ve performed better than competitors because our stores are built on architecting merchandise in line with people’s lives as opposed to being in a purely product-selling mode. Products are just the ambassadors, if you go beyond that by building an exciting store experience then sales don’t get dictated by macro trends. In fact, despite being a discretionary category it clocked 47% like-for-like growth this January.
Time Out corners now also feature within Pantaloon Retail’s Central formats across Bangalore and Ahmedabad. What is the rationale of being present in a rival’s format?
It’s a win-win partnership for both retailers. Central is a premium format where the consumer traffic is relevant to Time Out and the offerings appeal to the audience. Being wants and aspiration-driven, the format’s presence itself drives consumption. From a competitor’s point of view, it offers the option of partnering with a competent player to add to other categories.
Will there be a product overlap given your franchisee agreement with British toy retailer Hamleys?
Given the size of the population, the toy category is fairly underdeveloped in India. If you don’t show toys through large stores, you won’t sell enough of this impulse-driven segment. Most Indian retailers have included toys only as an aspect of multi-category stores so far. Our experience with Reliance Time Out showed that there existed a larger opportunity in having a full-fledged toy store. We will open the first store in Mumbai this month, followed by Chennai.
Indian Retail conglomerate, Reliance Retail Limited has launched its first Reliance Jewels outlet in Thane at Korum Mall. This is the seventeenth successful store launch of Reliance Jewels across India and the third in Mumbai. Reliance Jewels is offering a promotional offer of up to 50 percent OFF on gold jewellery making charges and up to 100 percent OFF on diamond jewellery making charges at the Thane store.
Commenting on the launch of the Thane Reliance Jewels, Mr. Bijou Kurien, President and Chief Executive – Reliance Retail said, “It has always been the endeavour of Reliance to provide consumers with a wide range of high quality products at competitive prices. Reliance Jewels is another step in that direction- we offer consumers an unparalleled range of jewellery, backed by the assurance of hallmarked gold and certified diamonds, in an unmatched shopping ambience. We are delighted to bring the Reliance Jewels experience to people residing in Thane. We have received very positive response from our Ghatkopar and Hughes Road customers and are confident that the Reliance Jewels experience will be appreciated by our Thane store customers too.”
Reliance Retail is leaving no stone unturned in tapping the lucrative jewellery retail industry in India. The total business ratio says that after food and apparel, jewellery is the next biggest industry and has got a very large scope and the competition is much lower compared to the other two which is why Reliance Jewels is all set for a major expansion.
The gold jewellery range encompasses Kolkata Filigree, Rajkot minakari jewellery, Kundan from Jaipur, Temple jewellery from Kerala, Jadau from Amritsar and much more. In Diamond jewellery, Reliance Jewels offers the finest quality of diamonds and the widest range of designs, ranging from daily wear to party wear, from diamonds for weddings as well as to celebrate every special occasion in a woman’s life.
Reliance Jewels has launched a second store in Ahmedbad on 9th March 2010. As per the company release, it is the seventeenth store of Reliance Jewels, the jewelry specialty format of Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL).
The range being offered by this Reliance Jewels outlet includes designs from Gujarat, Punjab and Bengal, besides bridal and temple jewellery. Furthermore, the Karatmeter available at the store allows customers to check the purity of gold, thereby making the process transparent and customer-friendly.
President and Chief Executive – Lifestyle, Mr. Bijou Kurien, said Reliance Jewels will give a special introductory offer for a limited period to its customers at the new store by charging up to Rs 100 a gram less in case of gold jewelry and up to 100% off on diamond jewelry-making charges.
Reliance Jewels, a the jewelry format of RRL., subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, opened its first store in 2007 and now operates 17 stores across India. They seem to focus on store network and roll out and have chosen prime locations in cities such as Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Ludhiana, New Delhi and Mumbai for their outlets thus far.
Reliance Jewels offers Kolkota filigree, Rajkot minakari jewelry, kundan from Jaipur, temple jewelry from Kerala, and jadau from Amritsar in 100 percent BIS Hallmarked gold jewelry and stunning pieces of diamond jewelry. The store provides more than 10,000 exclusive variations of jewellery designs including traditional Amritsari jadau, Ruby and emerald collections and displays a huge range of modern and antique designer collections to give world-class experience to its customers.
Vision Express, the 50-50 Joint Venture between Reliance Retail and Pearle Europe, continues to expand by opening its 9th store in Bangalore in Mantri Square Mall. The opening of this Vision Express store is in sync with Reliance Retail’s aggressive retail expansion strategy which has helped Vision Express establish a formidable presence with 45 stores across 18 cities in the country within the first year of its operations. This Bangalore outlet is the 45th Vision Express outlet store in the country and reiterates the reputation of Vision Express as one of the fastest growing eyewear retail chains in the country.
“The launch of this Vision Express outlet reflects the core retail philosophy of the brand in its commitment to present an international and superior shopping experience within easy reach of the customers. We are delighted to extend the Vision Express shopping experience to the mall oriented customer segment through our store at Mantri Mall, our first store in the region situated within a mall. To open this store in a new and great environment demonstrates our dedication towards catering to the evolving customer needs and behaviour,” said Guillame Brouwet, CEO, Vision Express.
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Trends, the apparel arm of Reliance Retail Group, that offers quality and fashionable clothing at low prices, is chalking out major expansion plans. Reliance Trends is all set to expand its current base of 18 stores across the country to over 100 by 2012 across 90 cities. Mr. Akhilesh Prasad, Senior Vice President and Head, National Operations, Reliance Trends, mentioned that major thrust area for this growth will be the southern market, especially Tamil Nadu. Recently, Reliance Retail launched its first Reliance trends shop in Chennai at Mylapore.
As the apparel retail subsidiary of Reliance Retail, Reliance Trends commenced operations in the year 2008 with a unique target: to offer the common man quality and fashionable clothing at remarkably low prices. The mega structure store has been established keeping the needs of common man in mind. Backed by the largest corporate entity in India, Reliance Industries, this strong enterprise stayed unaffected even during the times of economic slowdown. In fact, Reliance Trends was conferred the prestigious title of the Asia Retail Congress recently.
Realising the growing prosperity of smaller towns and cities in India, Reliance Trends is now laying emphasis on A and B class towns. Of the new stores, 60 per cent will be in smaller cities and towns as they have the advantage of lower ren¬tals and lesser property pri¬ces. At present, it has 18 st¬ores in 13 cities, including Nashik, Ghaziabad, Jalandhar and Vishakapatnam.
Reliance Trends is planning to add 1.5 million sq ft retail space to assist its expansion plans. A considerable number of stores sized 15,000 to 25,000 sq ft will come up in the land bank available with Reliance Retail, the rest on leased and rented spaces. “As per standards, an investment of Rs 1,500 to 2,000 is required for each sq ft of retail space,” said Mr. Akhil¬esh Prasad.
