Reliance TimeOut, the one-stop destination for books, music and stationery enthusiasts, a specialty format of Reliance Retail, has opened its new store in Thane, at Korum mall, Thane. After successful launches in Bangalore, Gurgaon, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, this is Reliance TimeOut’s 13th store in the country and 3rd store in Mumbai.

The new Reliance TimeOut store extends to its customers a host of books, music, stationery, toys and gifts. It offers a huge range of choice with over 24,000 books and magazines, over 15,000 music and movie titles, more than 4,000 Stationery items and a wide range of gifts and toys.

In addition to the wide range of product offerings, Reliance TimeOut has introduced ‘Summer Carnival’ which boasts of loads of events and exciting offers on a wide range of products which will go on till mid-June. As part of the summer carnival, Reliance TimeOut is offering up to 50% off on kids’ films and up to 10% off on Kids’ books, while the grown ups can take advantage of a discount of up to 25% on retro music CDs. The store has also got deals running on back-to-school products and their fragrance range.

On the occasion of the launch, Deepinder Kapany, Business Head, Reliance TimeOut said, “We are very pleased to open our third store in Mumbai and offer our customers a whole new experience to look forward to. We have received an overwhelming response from customers for our innovative and unique concept and the exciting range of interactive activities that enables customers to meet and interact with their favorite authors. We are sure that the books, music and movie enthusiasts in the city will enjoy the experience that we have especially designed for them.”

The store will also see a lot of performances from up-coming artists and will host tons of activities for children. These products combined together with services offered in a truly world class environment and with friendly, knowledgeable and energetic staff will surely make Reliance TimeOut a place to be.

Reliance TimeOut’s initiative called ‘Book Club’ launched on 2nd August 2008 is fast transforming Reliance TimeOut into a literary hub, with varied activities conducted at least twice a month at the store. The Reliance TimeOut Book Club provides its customers a platform to engage in discussions with their favorite authors and also get entertained through various book reading and enactment sessions. For people interested in books, plays, theatre, poetry and writing, membership of the Reliance TimeOut Book Club is an absolute must. A member gets invitations for all the events at Reliance TimeOut and will also enjoy a whopping 10% off on all books purchased at the store. Unisun Publications which has been organising the Unisun Creative Writing Competitions over the years, now organises the ‘Annual Writing Contest’ for budding writers in association with Reliance TimeOut every year, which gives budding authors the opportunity to win exciting cash prizes as well as a chance to get published.

Source:http://news-views.in/reliance-timeout-launches-its-third-store-in-mumbai/

The Reliance TimeOut store in Gurgaon saw the debut of the novel ‘Lanterns on their Horns’ by bestselling author Radhika Jha. The new novel, set in the hinterlands adjacent to Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, is about technology and transformation, poverty and politics.

Jha’s ‘Lanterns on their Horns’ has been launched by Harper Collins in association with Reliance TimeOut. Deepinder Kapany, the business head of Reliance Timeout said, “We are thrilled to have one of the bestselling authors, Radhika Jha in our store to launch her new novel, ‘Lanterns on their Horns’. I am sure readers will love her book and relate to it.”

Radhika Jha is careful to give us a cross-section of the things wrong with rural India. In the process, she offers academics and students in literary studies several ‘issues’: superstition, caste, gender, poverty. The basis of her story – the transformation of Nandgaon, is problematic in such that technology does not solve basic problems if there isn’t education and equality of access. That village life is as complex as the urban, we know from Jha.

‘Lanterns on their Horns’ showcases a wide cast of characters in this with playful irony and humor to lay bare an India that struggles daily and in innumerable ways with the overreaching issue of modernization – the ethics of it, and its impact on traditional social structures.

The audience at Reliance TimeOut was in for a treat as the launch was followed by reading session by Radhika Jha herself. The book reading was followed by a discussion, of the novel where Jha interacted with the audience and shared few interesting essentials from her new novel. The audience enthusiastically responded with questions and a few also shared their own views.

In the typical trend of launches and events of Reliance TimeOut, the books, magazine and music specialty format of Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Retail audience engagement was at its zenith. As Deepinder Kapany’s claims, “It is the aim of the Reliance TimeOut to constantly have exciting and engaging book readings, launches and events at the store and this is another event in that direction.” Like her previous bestseller ‘Smell’ and now ‘Lanterns on their Horns’, Radhika Jha will consider launching her next bestseller at Reliance Timeout as well.

Source:http://news-views.in/reliance-timeout-sees-the-launch-of-lanterns-on-their-horns/

Reliance Timeout seems to be experimenting with a new product offering in the music arena. They have started negotiating with music companies and content aggregators for the initiation of sale of digital music in their stores.

This new model proposed by the leisure arm of Reliance Retail is that the rights owners will make the music available via content aggregators, who, in turn, will stream it to the Reliance Timeout store. Customers can choose to buy single tracks, or create their own compilations, and have them copied to a portable music player or mobile phone, or burnt on a CD at a small extra cost. The clincher – the music will be available at just Rs. 8 to Rs. 10 per song!

At the end of 2009 Mr. Deepinder Kapany, Business Head, Reliance TimeOut announced that “In the next 3-5 years, we will have a total of 45 Reliance TimeOut outlets across four states-mainly in western and southern India. Our strategy is to first saturate a town, then a state followed by the entire region.” Amidst several brand tie-ups and book launches that Reliance Timeout has seen over the last couple of months, this falls in line with the new initiatives the Reliance Retail and specifically Relaince TimeOut head are taking towards the expansion of the Reliance TimeOut brand.

In this era of free downloads and digital music at subsidized rates, there have been several attempts made to get people to pay for music, since the digital boom. It will definitely be fascinating to see whether Reliance Timeout can succeed where so many have failed and actually get people to pay for music.

Source:http://news-views.in/reliance-timeout-playing-new-tunes/

watch?v=O7q-y1kBZOcMukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Ltd plans to open a total of 45 stores of its books and music retailing business—Reliance TimeOut—across India over the next 3-5 years.

The multi-format retailer, which operates seven stores of TimeOut, said it wants to tap India’s Rs3,500 crore book retailing industry, of which only 40% is organised.

Reliance Retail will expand through the cost-effective model of revenue-sharing format with property owners.

Reliance Retail, business head, Reliance TimeOut, Deepinder Kapany said that the TimeOut format was the ‘biggest beneficiary’ of the economic meltdown of the past year as books, music and stationary continued their sales momentum even as most lifestyle and value retailers world-over grappled with depressed sales.

“In the next 3-5 years (or December 2014), we will have a total of 45 TimeOut outlets across four states-mainly in western and southern India. Our strategy is to first saturate a town, then a state followed by the entire region,” Kapany said.

He said that the next couple of months will see five stores being opened in Mumbai.

“The next few stores in 2010 will come up in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bangalore. We want to saturate Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and the National Capital Region (NCR),” Kapany said.

This is part of an overall aggressive expansion strategy by the format, which will enter Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mangalore, Ahmedabad, Baroda and Jamnagar.

“This is one format which has grown. On an average day, we had footfalls of at least 4,000 to 4,500 in our Delhi and Bangalore stores respectively. Our same store sales growth has been 26% this year,” he said, but declined to reveal revenues for the format.

Kapany said that TimeOut reserves 40% of its shelf space for books, 20% for music and 10% for toys and games.

The remaining 30% space is equally divided between stationary items and gifts, watches and fragrances.

Reliance Retail last week opened a 10,000 sq ft TimeOut store in Mumbai. The company already operates a 42,000 sqft store in Gurgaon and another 21,000 sq ft store in Bangalore among other smaller sized stores.