Apparel, Specialty ..

SFIO may question Reebok officials in Rs 870-crore fraud case Business Standard Corporate fraud probe body, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has started scrutinising documents relating to the alleged Rs 870-crore fraud at Reebok India and may soon take a call on questioning senior officials of the sportswear maker. "We are still studying various documents relating to the fraud after which we will begin interrogating seniors officials of Reebok India and also the two accused," a source said. The documents, sources said, included annual reports and the findings of the Registrar of Companies.

Arvind threatens legal action against striking workers Business Standard Terming the week-long strike by workers for wage hike as 'illegal', the Arvind Ltd's management on Sunday threatened strict legal action if the workers fail to turn up for work on Monday. In a public appeal published in local newspapers, on Sunday, the company management has alleged that the despite the assurance to implement wage hike within six months the workers of the Naroda unit of the company were adamant with their demand and would not come to work unless their demand for 40 percent hike was accepted.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia backs FDI in retail Economic Times Deputy Chief of Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, on Saturday, said the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector would provide impetus to Indian entrepreneurs. "I am in favour of allowing the FDI in retail. It shouldn't be the case that the modernisation of retail is beyond the capability of Indian enterprise. Personally I think that the great value of FDI in retail is that it will stimulate a lot of our own entrepreneurs," Ahluwalia said.

Bennett, Coleman & Co ups stake in Pantaloon Retailto 5.83 percent Zee News Pantaloon Retail (India) on Friday said Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) has raised its stake in the company to 5.83 percent through a preferential purchase of equity shares. In a filing to the BSE, Pantaloon Retail said BCCL has picked up 81,63,265 additional shares in the Future Group firm that represent a 3.79 percent stake. Post this acquisition, BCCL's stake in the company will go up to 5.83 percent representing 1,25,66,477 equity shares, it added.

Expedia to open retail outlets in India Business Standard In a first, online travel company Expedia is planning to open retail outlets for the Indian market. This is a strategy it has not adopted anywhere else worldwide. However, it is not the first online travel company to have an offline presence in India. MakeMyTrip has 54 stores across India. Yatra.com has 23 outlets, including one in Kathmandu, which it refers to as 'Yatra holiday lounges'. In a contrast scenario, traditional travel companies like Cox & Kings and Thomas Cook are looking at online outlets as an important tool for growth and remaining relevant. A senior travel industry expert said, "Companies have to go for a hybrid model and have a healthy mix of both online and offline if they want to compete and get a wider market share."

Landmark bets on franchises Hindustan Times Tata Group-owned Landmark, which has 18 large format book stores, is revisiting its expansion strategy. Instead of expanding through company-owned stores, the book chain will now focus on establishing a franchisee-based model. "Until now our approach has been to open Landmark-owned stores," said Ashutosh Pandey, Chief Operating Officer, Landmark. "We are now looking at the franchisee model." The company is looking to open at least 25 new large format stores over the next three years. "We have realised that it's one thing to run a few stores on our own but it's not the same to do so on a larger scale," said Pandey. "Landmark is more than just a bookstore as we have at least six categories including books. This kind of work needs specialisation and as we look to expand rapidly, the franchisee model will work best for us."

Promart to open 100 outlets by 2013 Hindu Business Line Promart Retail Indian, a discounted retail chain and value format concept, will open 100 outlets by 2013. The company today signed 50 franchisees for the same. The stores will come up in tier II and III cities in Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Promart has its own stores in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Vapi, Aurangabad and Mumbai.

Homeshop18 in revamp mode, eyes funding Hindu Business Line Homeshop18, the TV and online-shopping network, claims to be close to stitching up investments from private-equity firms. The company's Founder and CEO, Mr Sundeep Malhotra said that the undisclosed investments should be in "in a month's time." Mr Malhotra said, "What we are doing now is a revamp of the business in several ways. We are expanding infrastructure, continuing to invest in IT and expanding the product portfolio. The target is to touch Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 crore in two to three years." Forecasting mechanisms, enterprise resource planning and revamped customer relationship management tools are on the anvil. The intent is also to move from value-for-money offerings to lifestyle and, eventually, add luxury to the product portfolio.

MTV and Crusoe tie up to launch range of men's innerwear brand Indiantelevision.com Treading the unconventional route yet again, youth entertainment channel MTV has tied up with men's innerwear Crusoe to launch the 'Roadies' range of innerwear. The collection, called 'MTV Roadies Men's Innerwear by Crusoe', comprises nearly 50 style options available at more than 1000 retail points, across India, including large format stores, multi-brand-outlets and exclusive Crusoe outlets apart from online sales options. Viacom18 Media Senior Vice President, Consumer Products and Communications Sandeep Dahiya said, "Over the last one year I think what we have also tried to do is to try the unconventional. The brands that we have, lend themselves very well to the unconventional categories and ideas. We thought we have stationary, eyewear, apparels and footwear. So why not explore categories which have not been explored yet - globally or anywhere else. Again, research and insight told us that innerwear inIndia is very boring, more so in the men's range."

News - Food, QSR

Bangs in tie-up with Doha company for overseas foray Hindu Business Line The home-grown fried chicken 'quick service restaurant' brand, Bangs, has tied up with the Doha-based Exblowra Trading and Contracting services company for an overseas foray. The QSR chain, which currently has 31 outlets across 13 States in India, will open its first outlet in West Asia at Qatar by the end of July, said Mr Asvin Simon, Founder and Managing Director of the chain. He said the company has floated a joint venture firm along with Exblowra to take the restaurant brand Bangs to West Asia. The joint venture firm will launch another two outlets by the end of the current calendar year. "The investment will be anywhere between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 2 crore per outlet."

Future Group plans gourmet food stall Hindustan Times Kishore Biyani-led Future Group is poised to expand its newest business vertical, the large format gourmet store Food Hall, signalling a willingness to look beyond value formats. The company plans to expand the store, which is envisaged as a chain, to key Indian cities after its more than satisfactory performance in Mumbai. Avni Biyani, the younger daughter of Future Group Founder and Head Kishore Biyani, is at the helm of the premium food chain. She said the Food Hall's 15,000 sq ft flagship store in Mumbai is likely to break even soon. She said the company plans to roll out large flagship stores with numerous smaller satellite stores around them.

Subway opens outlet in Indore Hindu Business Line US-based fast food chain Subway on Friday opened a restaurant in Indore, its first in Madhya Pradesh, and plans to have more outlets in the state by the year-end. As per a survey, Indore generates Rs 3.5 crore worth of fast food business per month. Of this, the restaurant chain is aiming to corner 5 to 10 percent share, Subway franchise Managing Director Mr Abhishek Bahety said at a press conference.

Barbeque Nation opens at Lokhandwala Times of India For all those wanting to try out a new place, here's where you can go. The newly opened Barbeque Nation in Andheri (W), has embedded grills on every table, giving customers an opportunity to try out their culinary skills with the three-fourth cooked vegetables and meats. Established in 2006, Barbeque Nation is the fastest growing domestic restaurant chain and has 20 outlets in 13 cities acrossIndia. It now caters to almost 24 lakh meals per year. The pre-fixed offering of vegetarian and non-vegetarian barbeque fare goes on till the time guests enjoy the servings followed by an elaborate buffet spread. Barbeque Nation was voted as one of the most popular restaurants in almost all cities by several online portals and is one of the most sought after restaurants in India as per the Miele Guide, which has listed Barbeque Nation as one of the Top 100 restaurants in Asia and featured among the first 20 restaurants in India. Thirty more outlets are set to open across the country by March 2013.

Trends

FDI in retail reforms stuck: Indian retailers face cash crunch & slowing growth Economic Times India's largest supermarket operator, Future Group, is having a clearance sale: its financial service business and flagship clothing brand are gone, and more deals are in the pipeline. Six months after the government backtracked on plans to allow foreign retail giants such as Wal-Mart Stores and Carrefour to form joint ventures, cash-starved domestic chains are selling assets, shutting stores, and scaling back expansion plans. It seems improbable that retailers could be in such trouble in India; they have the world's second-largest population, increasingly affluent consumers, and limited competition.

Insight

Retailing In India Future Perspective: A Study IJRFM Retailing is the interface between the producer and the individual consumer buying for personal consumption. This excludes direct interface between the manufacturer and institutional buyers such as the government and other bulk customers. A retailer is one who stocks the producer's goods and is involved in the act of selling it to the individual consumer, at a margin of profit. As such, retailing is the last link that connects the individual consumer with the manufacturing and distribution chain.

Headphone zone- Asias first exclusive headphonesretail brand (Premium) - View Free Sample Leveraging on its audiovideo accessories distribution business, the Chennai-based Ferrari Video has opened aretail chain specialising in headphones and is planning to establish presence in all major metros by the end of this year. The Chennai-based Headphone Zone is billed as Asia's first exclusive headphones retail brand. It is founded by 24-year-old Raghav Somani whose family runs Ferrari Video, an importer and distributor of audiovideo accessories. Headphone Zone since September 2011 has opened four outlets. While it runs full-fledged stores at the Garuda Mall (190-200 sq.ft.) and the Royal Meenakshi Mall (400 sq.ft.) in Bangalore, the Mantri Square (Bangalore) and the Express Avenue (Chennai) malls only host kiosks. The company is planning 20 stores all overIndia by this year end through expanding into prime malls in tier I cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata to leverage on its pre-existing distribution business in these locations. Each store generally entails an investment of `20-25 lacs. Upon his return from Singapore a few years ago to take over the family business, Somani discovered that retailers in Indiahad no idea how to sell headphones.

Growth Drivers of Modern Retail (Premium) - View Free Sample The overall Indian retail market is estimated to be around $428 bn, but modern retail accounts for only 8 percent of it. This, more than anything else, underlines the tremendous scope for growth in modern retailing in the country in the years to come. There are a host of factors that are propelling the expansion of modern retail in India, including the improving infrastructure, a move away from the socialistic pattern of economy, better educational opportunities, and rising consumerism. Over the last couple of decades, much has been written in the Indian media about modern retailing, but the term has never been defined. Of late, FMCG companies have begun to use the words "modern trade" to describe the industry. Here again, there is confusion. While a stand-alone supermarket chain in Mumbai gets treated as modern trade, supermarkets with monthly sales of Rs.200 crore in Jalgaon or Jalna do not. Numerous such examples are found throughout India. To the common man, this distinction may matter little, except that modern trade sells things a little cheaper and offers many discounts and schemes, but it falsifies national data about the true extent of modern retail in the country.

Grooming Future CEOs (Premium) - View Free Sample The most important part of building any industry is the creation of capability as well as capacity. retailers in Indianeed to introduce management development programmes to groom entry-level employees to rise through the ranks. Indian modern retail has remained in its infancy for a long period now. The industry has grown in volume and value sales, but the contribution of modern retail to the overallretail hovers in the 5 percent range. The hard truth is that modern retail has not surpassed our country's consumption growth in a big way. At the same time, traditional retailers are expanding and modernising themselves. Modern retail has attracted a large share of media space as well as mindspace in the consulting practices - after all, nobody can deny its benefits and positive contribution to the India growth story. Unfortunately, the politicians and the beaurocratic set-up of the country have not understood the impact modernretail can have on the Indian consumers and the economy. For strange reasons, modern retail in popular imagination has got associated with the FDI issue.

Cover Story- Beyond the Metros- Small Cities Big Opportunity (Premium) - View Free Sample As the metros saturate and become more expensive to operate in, many Retailers are expanding to smaller towns and cities across India to tap a new breed of customers who are getting richer and increasingly willing to shell out money to shop at modern retail formats. The modern retailrevolution in India began in Delhi and Mumbai over one and a half decades ago and gradually spread to Hyderabad and Bangalore and other tier I cities of the country. These prominent locations offered clear advantages to retailchains: millions of potential consumers with solid purchasing power, high level of urbanisation, availability of quality retail real-estate, and good physical infrastructure. However, over the years, competition intensified and rentals and operational costs became very high, affecting the overall profitability of retailers. The result: many players have begun to seriously look at growth opportunities in smaller towns beyond the metros where the competition is less, rentals are still reasonable, salaries are comparatively low, and consumers have begun to prefer the sophisticated atmosphere of modernretail outlets over crowded bazaars.