The
new chain will signify the group's entry into small
format, last-mile retail space. The group, which owns
famous retail brands like Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Pantaloon,
Home Town, Central, and e-Zone, has since its inception
been active only in the large format stores space.
"Our target is to provide essential items cheaper
than the market price and we are looking at a 20% market
share of the neighbourhood retail market," said
Narendra Baheti, Managing Director, Pantaloons Foods.
Positioned as no-frills, fair price shops chain, with
a tag line of "sare jahan se sasta," the new
retail chain would alter a few rules of the trade in
India, added Baheti.
The new non-air conditioned, no-frills, retail chain,
with each shop measuring an average of 2,000 square
feet retail space, will be based on neighbourhood, convenience,
stores concept. Stocking only a limited variety of items
required to meet daily needs of its customers, the chain
proposes to offer merchandise at 10% lower prices than
market for national brands and up to 20% lower than
market prices for local brands.
Beginning with Mumbai and Delhi on a pilot basis, the
chain plans to later on spread out to other metro and
mega markets of Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore,
Pune and Chennai.
KB's Fair Price Shops, will bring the group into direct
competition with no-frills, small format player Subhiksha,
which has already set up over 780 stores, and is well
on its way to achieve the target of 1,200 stores by
March, 2008.
This will also put KB's fair price shops into competition
among others with Ambani's Reliance 'Fresh,' RPG's Spencer's
Daily Express, Birla's More, Piramal's Trumart, and
Wadhwan's Spinach, which are also active in neighbourhood,
convenience space, albeit with more glitzy presentation.
The cost of setting up KB's fair price shops, which
are initially to be owned by the group, according to
Baheti, would be around Rs 280 a sq ft against Rs 2,000
a sq ft required for a modern super market store.
Source: www.indiaretailbiz.com
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