In June 2007, Future Capital Holdings Ltd (FCHL), a financial arm of the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group, launched its retail financial services offering – Future Money – with the objective of becoming the leading retailers of financial products and services in India. Pursuant to an agreement with PRIL, it has the exclusive rights to provide financial products and services at present and future malls, stores and retail outlets in India which are owned, managed and controlled by PRIL and its subsidiaries.

According to Kishore Biyani, managing director, FCHL, “Within a month, FCHL is planning to foray into distribution of financial products, including credit cards. FCHL has entered into an agreement with ICICI Bank for marketing and distribution of the yet-to-be-launched Future Card, which will be a credit card offering loyalty points to customers. With the move, over five lakh ICICI Big Bazaar credit card holders will be asked to migrate to Future Card after obtaining a written consent. Customers shopping at various stores such as E Zone, Home Town, Central, Big Bazaar – from the House of Future Group – will be able to avail of the Future Card facility. With the move, we hope to increase our customer base extensively.” Currently, the two main retail financial services products are consumption loans (which are loans to finance the purchase of durables, furniture and other consumer goods and personal loans, which are unsecured credit lines to individual customers. “FCHL is also in the process of finalising detailed terms for acting as a corporate agent for Future Generali India Insurance Company Ltd for general insurance products and, for Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Ltd for life insurance products.

var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2,11); b2 = ‘ ‘; if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = b2;

For the first time, Hypercity Retail India Ltd, along with Shoppers’ Stop, has entered into a franchise agreement with the UK-based Home Retail Group, Argos, to offer multi-channel shopping experience to its customers.

Hypercity Retail India would offer this facility under the brand name of Hypercity Argos.

“This unique format of catalogue shopping is definitely suited for metros like Mumbai where retail space is expensive and has been a deterrent for retailers to reach out to a larger consumer base in a cost-effective manner,” Hypercity Retail’s CEO, Andrew Levermore, told media here.

Hypercity Argos’ integrated multi-channel capability encompassing stores, home shopping and the Internet, would provide consumers a new horizon to shopping, he said.

The firm has launched its business with five stores in Thane and would be opening more stores by the end of the first year, Levermore said.

“Convenience is a very important factor and if multi-channel shopping is being made available to a consumer, the initial response would come from the catalogue,” Shoppers’ Stop Managing Director, B S Nagesh, said.

Another retail chain, The Bombay Store, is also planning to provide this facility in the next few months.

“It is too early in India, although internationally it is a well-known concept. It will definitely take-off in the coming years,” Bombay Store Managing Director Asim Dalal said.

While he does not plan to launch catalogue-shopping immediately, he said, “We will be launching it in the next one year,” he said.

However, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail said it had no immediate plans to launch this offering.

“We at Reliance Retail are not planning catalogue- shopping in near future though it is a growing field. Major retailers should do well looking at the stupendous growth patterns,” Reliance Retail Head-Corporate Communications Manu Kapoor said.

Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said, “We don’t believe in paper catalogues and have no plans to launch it in the near future.”

Though nascent in India, the catalogue shopping segment is huge overseas. The US market is estimated at around $180-billion while the European market is pegged at around Euro 50-billion.

Source : PTI

“We are planning to launch the Mega e-Zone store at Bengaluru this year. Spread across 25,000 square feet, the store will house a new range of products including washing machines, digital cameras and LCD televisions,” Hemchandra Javeri, chief executive officer, Home Solutions Retail, confirmed to Indiaretailing.

Presently, the company has more than 25 e-Zone outlets with an average store size of 10,000 square feet, while for expansions the company has already acquired space in eight cities.

With an investment of Rs 500 crore in the next two years, the company is expecting to achieve a turnover of Rs 700 crore by this year-end.

Meanwhile, Future Bazaar, the e-retailing format of Future Group, is also planning to take the expansion route shortly. The company has hired professionals from FMCG, retail and IT backgrounds for three key positions.

It has roped in former Pepsi Foods vice president (marketing), Saujanya Shrivastava, as head of marketing and sales, Future Bazaar; while former Satyam executive Ramesh Krishnan has come on-board as Future Bazaar’s chief of customer experience. Virendra Chhatbar from K Raheja Group will take charge at Future Bazaar as chief financial officer

Pantaloon Retail alleges that Cadbury has discriminated against it by giving preferential prices and treatment to rival retailers including Germany’s Metro and Shoprite from the US.

Kishore Biyani, chief executive of Future Group, which owns Pantaloon, said: “We are taking their products out of the stores. We are not receiving the same treatment as others. They are giving better prices to other operators.”

A spokesman for Cadbury said: “As far as we are concerned, negotiations are still under way and we are still trying to find a mutually agreeable set of terms.”

The dispute, which will affect about 200 Pantaloon stores, threatens to harm Cadbury’s business in India, where it holds a 71pc share of the chocolate market and grew revenues more than 20pc last year.

It is not the first disagreement Pantaloon has had with a global food or drinks company.

A previous dispute with Pepsi, which Mr Biyani said was focused on disagreements about profit margins, resulted in Pantaloon taking some of the drink giant’s products out of its stores. That row has since been resolved and Pantaloon is again stocking Pepsi products.

The Cadbury dispute revolved around “pricing, margins and discrimination”, Mr Biyani said. He declined to say how much the Cadbury contract was worth.

One industry source downplayed Pantaloon’s claims. “This is just a negotiating tactic and one they have used before. In greenfield markets such as India, which are still maturing, these tactics are a lot more common.”

In the UK, retailers are reluctant to make their disputes with branded food suppliers public for fear of losing the chance to stock their products.

Global food and drink companies have increased their focus on the developing world in recent years as consumer markets have boomed. Industry insiders said the dispute suggested that local companies were growing more confident about standing up to foreign multinationals on pricing and other issues.

Pantaloon is expected to make revenues of more than 57b rupees (£685m) this year, according to JP Morgan. That is forecast to grow to 90bn rupees in 2009 and 124bn rupees in 2010, highlighting the growth potential of the company.

Cadbury has previously labelled India’s 41bn-rupee confectionery sector as a “battleground and must-win market”, according to local media reports.

The new JV, Future Axiom Telecom Ltd, would take charge of the 500 odd Mobile Bazaar and Mport stores in 58 cities operated by Future Group under the name of ConvergeM since the company ventured into mobile retailing in 2006, Future group said in a statement.

“The 50:50 JV involves an initial investment of about 40 million dollar. It will retail and distribute mobile handsets and accessories and set up service centres in India,” the company said.

Axiom Telecom  has 500 odd outlets in various countries including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt and UK.

“While Future Group was on the lookout for a partner with expertise in the retailing of communication products, Axiom Telecom was keen to enter the Indian market and being a part of the Indian growth story.

“Future Axiom is all set to venture in the Rs 50,000 crore mobile retail industry and set new benchmarks,” Future Axiom Telecom Ltd Chief Executive Officer Ashy Sehgal said.

He said the JV would start with the 500 stores and touch points in 58 cities under the brand names of Mobile Bazaar and Mport.

Elaborating Axioms scope in the Indian market, Faisal Al Bannai, founder, Axiom Telecom, said, “We recognised India as the land of opportunities and are delighted to become a partner with the Future Group for operations in India. This partnership will help our expertise in the mobile retail space grow and set new benchmarks with Future Group’s reach and understanding of the Indian consumer.”

It is also planning to undertake a major rebranding exercise of the existing Mobile Bazaar and Mport stores, it added.

“There are major expansion plans on the anvil and we plan to be a 1,500 outlet organisation by the end of December 2009,” Sehgal added.

When contacted, Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said: “We have been evaluating the option of creating a new entity for our value retailing businesses.” Last year, Pantaloon Retail had secured board approvals for hiving off the businesses into independent subsidiaries that could be listed at a later date.

Under the proposal, Pantaloon Retail will be a holding company. Pantaloon officials familiar with the development said the group is examining a structure that would eventually enable it to strike a JV with a global retailer. Pantaloon Retail has been in talks with Carrefour, the world’s second-largest French supermarket group, for a JV in India.

Under the scheme of things, Future Value Retail would serve as a major supply-chain entity for all Future Group store formats and help the company prune costs, a group official said. Technically, the sourcing and back-end of the store formats would be one while the front ends would continue to operate as separate entities. Currently, all Food Bazaar outlets, comprising its food and grocery supermarket business, are located within Big Bazaar formats.

While Big Bazaar is the group’s hypermarket business and has 109 stores, Food Bazaar is a supermarket chain that has 152 stores with most of them housed adjacent to Big Bazaar. Food Bazaar’s business model resembles the value model of global retailer Wal-Mart. According to Nielsen data, Food Bazaar’s share in the FMCG space in terms of modern trade is about 28%. Pantaloon Retail is estimated to report sales of Rs 10,000 crore for 2008-09 while the combined revenues of Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar are estimated to touch Rs 5,000 crore.

A proposed joint venture with a foreign retailer would enable the Future Group access sizeable dollar funds needed to expand its business. A foreign partner will also help the group bring in more efficiency in sourcing and logistics, helping it drive down prices and boost margins. Besides Big Bazaar, the Future Group runs Food Bazaar, KB’s Fair Price shops, Pantaloons, Central, Home Town, eZone and Aadhaar. The Pantaloon Retail stock closed at Rs 130.15, up 5.46%, on the BSE on Monday.

In a challenging consumer environment, bargain hunters are flocking to modern value-retail formats like Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, D’Mart and More, which have been coming up with discount offers to attract customers. This reflects a global trend, wherein value-retail formats are growing despite the overall slowdown in the economy. Last month, US-based Wal-Mart reported a strong 5.1% increase in same-store sales (excluding gasoline sales) in the US, even though lifestyle chains, like Target, Macy’s and Abercrombie & Fitch, suffered a drop in sales.

RETAIL BLISS

Pantaloon may use the new format to strike JV with France’s Carrefour
A proposed JV would bring in the required funds for Future Group to scale up its business Presence of a foreign partner, in all likelihood, will have a positive impact on the efficiency level, which would bring down prices and help margins

For starters, the group has decided that the price of products sold through the Pantaloons chain will be reduced to the level of 2007. It expects such a strategy will provide a compelling entry-level price point to consumers vis-à-vis competing retail chains. Also, on the cards are plans to expand the Pantaloons private-label portfolio.

Confirming this, Pantaloon Retail India CEO-Pantaloons, Sanjeev Agrawal said that the company has taken a conscious decision to reduce product prices at Pantaloons to that of two years ago. “This will build a value-for-money proposition for consumers and will help to grow sales. Even the new private labels will have a similar pricing strategy,” he said.

Future Group currently operates 44 Pantaloons outlets across India over a total of 1.2 million sqft. The group plans to open six more Pantaloons stores by October, including two in Bangalore and one in Kolkata. On an average, each of the Pantaloons outlet has an operating space of around 25,000 sqft.

“While we are on track with our expansion plan for Pantaloons, but the slowdown of mall construction across the country might eventually impact our rollout plan. This is mainly due to the fact that the Pantaloons format is largely mall-centric and have very few high-street outlets,” Mr Agrawal told ET.

The group is also driving operational efficiency at Pantaloons outlets. This is through tightening of supply-chain and maintaining an optimised product replenishment system. “In fact, our same store growth has also been as per expectations,” said Mr Agrawal. While he did not elaborate further, according to Future Group’s latest investor update, the same store growth for lifestyle retailing in March has been 4.28%.

NEW LOOK

The group expects that the strategy will provide a compelling entry-level price point to consumers vis-à-vis competing retail chains It is also looking at tightening supply-chain & maintaining an optimised product replenishment system The group, which currently operates 44 Pantaloons outlets, is planning to open six more stores.

Retailers feel such an approach will also help them improve gross margin returns per sq ft in the present environment when same store sales growth is quite weak. A shop-inshop approach helps increase revenue per sq ft. It enables best utilisation of space and is a good way to do away with excess space and reduce space for categories which are not doing well, Future Group CEORetail Rakesh Biyani told ET.

Future Group plans to offer a wider choice in large-format stores like Big Bazaar by setting up speciality zones under the shop-in-shop model. This approach provides consumers with a wider choice. We have a similar model for the Pantaloons outlets in the East and may replicate it elsewhere, Mr Biyani said. Shoppers Stop recently tied up with Cafe Coffee Day to manage cafes within its stores. It is an ongoing process to maximise returns, said managing director BS Nagesh. The most common categories where retailers are looking for shop-inshop outlets include food and beverage, saris and areas which have more customerconnect requirement like cosmetics, personal care products, fine jewellery and salons, says Retailers Association of India CEO Kumar Rajagopalan.

Spencers Retail, which is presently rightsizing by cutting down on 20% of its retail space, also plans to focus on shopinshops. In a slowdown, shop-in-shops are the best way to leverage domain knowledge of speciality players and maximise returns. Such outlets will be set up through our groups speciality formats like Books & Beyond, Mera World, Music World as well as in collaboration with other players, Spencers Retail marketing head Samar S Sheikhawat.

Vishal Retail group president Ambeek Khemka said the retailer too is restructuring its 171 stores nationally. We have already completed the exercise for 35-odd stores and the results are encouraging. In fact, small and regional brands are lapping up the opportunity to follow the shop-in-shops model, he said.

Economic Times: Writankar Mukherjee & Sreeradha D Basu, KOLKATA

The retailer is working with San Mateo, Calif.-based Greenplum on the project. “Flexibility and agility are core requirements in our IT infrastructure,” said Ushir Bhatt, CEO of Future Knowledge Services within Mumbai-based Future Group. “Greenplum Database is a centerpiece of our strategy to use a cloud-like approach to our data warehouse. Greenplum’s leadership in bringing forth Enterprise Data Cloud is another example of how they are leap-frogging their competition in the data warehousing market and adapting to the business needs of retailers.”

The Greenplum Database stores and analyzes terabytes to petabytes of data using clusters of commodity servers, moving processing power as close as possible to the data, so processing always occurs in parallel for better query and load performance, according to the company.

“Greenplum brings Future Group the speed and scalability of a massively parallel data warehouse but does so in a very cost-effective manner,” said Parakh Dave, head of technology services, Future Knowledge Services. “As we increase the amount of data under management, we will be able to make smarter decisions about customers, products, pricing and promotions across all of our retail outlets. We are setting a new standard for retail analytics by enabling our decision-makers to run Future Group as a data-driven enterprise.”