Boom in the Retail Sector : Reliance Mart
By Aayush Patni
Key People
Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL), Chairman & Managing Director
K. Radhakrishnan, CEO, Reliance Hypermarket
Raghu Pillai, Reliance Retail, Chief Executive & President
Launching of Reliance Mart
Aug 15: Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) launched its first Hypermarket named 'RelianceMart' at Iscon Mega Mall (biggest mall in Gujarat) in Ahmedabad. Reliance Mart, 3-storey Mart spread over 1,65,000 sq ft will have on its shelves over 95,000 products ranging from fresh produce, food and grocery, home care and health products, apparel and accessories, non-food FMCG products, consumer durables and IT, automotive accessories, lifestyle products and footwear with aggregate stocks of about half-a million pieces.
This Hypermart is being opened in less than a year of Reliance's entry into the 300-billion-dollar booming organised retail business. Last November, it had set up a cluster of Reliance Fresh stores in Hyderabad. According to Raghu Pillai, President and CEO (operations and strategy), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), each of the hypermarket "will be better than the best in the market."
Services Offered
It offers some unique services to the shoppers like tailoring, shoe repair, watch repair, a photo shop, gifting services and laundry services all within the store under one roof and also it has its own bakery shop.
The launch of RelianceMart is a step forward by Reliance Retail towards providing an international shopping experience to the customers at unmatched affordability, guaranteed quality and choice of products and services.
RelianceMart will also provide easy and attractive finance options, including zero per cent financing for the purchases on select products. RelianceMart will continue to offer all its customers RelianceOne, a common membership and loyalty programme across all its formats, which follows the philosophy of 'Earn Anywhere, Spend Anywhere'.
Future Plans
The next two hypermarkets are to be opened in Jamnagar in Gujarat and in the NCR by next month with plans to open 30 such marts by the year. Raghu Pillai, President and CEO (operations and strategy), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) said the company is planning to set up 500 hypermarkets across 784 towns by 2010.
Reliance Retail is building a robust and state-of-the-art supply chain infrastructure spanning the entire country, besides setting up its own cold storage chain. It is expected to generate direct employment for half-a-million people and indirect employment to two million.
Reliance hypermarket CEO K. Radhakrishnan said six malls under the RelianceMart brand would come up in the national capital region (NCR), five each in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, three in Gujarat and two in Bangalore.
Strategy
The hypermarket would be selling the products on EDLP (every day low price) basis at prices 15-20 percent lower than market prices.
In order to grow faster and better in local markets with higher margins, it has focused largely on local brands instead of national brands or private labels. Local brands includes Induben Khakrawala’s Namkeens, Lijjat Papad, Wagh Bakri and Madhur (spices brand). This is in addition to 100 private labels that Reliance plans to display. Company’s Sources says that the share of regional brands in the Hypermarts would be over 10%.
Strengths
Keeping local brands at the outlets is more profitable and also makes the supply chain more efficient. Being a bulk purchaser, Reliance Mart can offer products at very low prices. Also taking into consideration the local brands, the products at the outlets would be easily acceptable by the customers. And there would be comparatively less efforts needed by the marketer to explain the product to the consumers.
Weaknesses
In some cases, few regional brands strongly liked by the consumers offer lower margins than that offered by the national brands. It has to face a tough competition by big shopping malls ie. Big Bazaar, Spencer Hyper, Vishal Mega Mart nad the upcoming Wall Mart.
By Aayush Patni
Key People
Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL), Chairman & Managing Director
K. Radhakrishnan, CEO, Reliance Hypermarket
Raghu Pillai, Reliance Retail, Chief Executive & President
Launching of Reliance Mart
Aug 15: Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) launched its first Hypermarket named 'RelianceMart' at Iscon Mega Mall (biggest mall in Gujarat) in Ahmedabad. Reliance Mart, 3-storey Mart spread over 1,65,000 sq ft will have on its shelves over 95,000 products ranging from fresh produce, food and grocery, home care and health products, apparel and accessories, non-food FMCG products, consumer durables and IT, automotive accessories, lifestyle products and footwear with aggregate stocks of about half-a million pieces.
This Hypermart is being opened in less than a year of Reliance's entry into the 300-billion-dollar booming organised retail business. Last November, it had set up a cluster of Reliance Fresh stores in Hyderabad. According to Raghu Pillai, President and CEO (operations and strategy), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), each of the hypermarket "will be better than the best in the market."
Services Offered
It offers some unique services to the shoppers like tailoring, shoe repair, watch repair, a photo shop, gifting services and laundry services all within the store under one roof and also it has its own bakery shop.
The launch of RelianceMart is a step forward by Reliance Retail towards providing an international shopping experience to the customers at unmatched affordability, guaranteed quality and choice of products and services.
RelianceMart will also provide easy and attractive finance options, including zero per cent financing for the purchases on select products. RelianceMart will continue to offer all its customers RelianceOne, a common membership and loyalty programme across all its formats, which follows the philosophy of 'Earn Anywhere, Spend Anywhere'.
Future Plans
The next two hypermarkets are to be opened in Jamnagar in Gujarat and in the NCR by next month with plans to open 30 such marts by the year. Raghu Pillai, President and CEO (operations and strategy), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) said the company is planning to set up 500 hypermarkets across 784 towns by 2010.
Reliance Retail is building a robust and state-of-the-art supply chain infrastructure spanning the entire country, besides setting up its own cold storage chain. It is expected to generate direct employment for half-a-million people and indirect employment to two million.
Reliance hypermarket CEO K. Radhakrishnan said six malls under the RelianceMart brand would come up in the national capital region (NCR), five each in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, three in Gujarat and two in Bangalore.
Strategy
The hypermarket would be selling the products on EDLP (every day low price) basis at prices 15-20 percent lower than market prices.
In order to grow faster and better in local markets with higher margins, it has focused largely on local brands instead of national brands or private labels. Local brands includes Induben Khakrawala’s Namkeens, Lijjat Papad, Wagh Bakri and Madhur (spices brand). This is in addition to 100 private labels that Reliance plans to display. Company’s Sources says that the share of regional brands in the Hypermarts would be over 10%.
Strengths
Keeping local brands at the outlets is more profitable and also makes the supply chain more efficient. Being a bulk purchaser, Reliance Mart can offer products at very low prices. Also taking into consideration the local brands, the products at the outlets would be easily acceptable by the customers. And there would be comparatively less efforts needed by the marketer to explain the product to the consumers.
Weaknesses
In some cases, few regional brands strongly liked by the consumers offer lower margins than that offered by the national brands. It has to face a tough competition by big shopping malls ie. Big Bazaar, Spencer Hyper, Vishal Mega Mart nad the upcoming Wall Mart.