Pantaloon Retail (India), the flagship listed company of the Future group promoter Kishore Biyani, is expanding its retail chain ‘Central’ by setting up new mall format stores in metro cities like Mumbai and Bangalore and tier-II and tier-III cities like Ahmedabad, Nashik, and Vashi, according to a news report in DNA Money.
‘Central’ is a first of its kind showcase, seamless mall in India. This pioneering concept was created with a view to give an unobstructed and a pure shopping experience to urban, discerning, aspiring, customers in India. These stores offer products of over 500 well known domestic and international brands. Besides, housing supermarkets and food courts, Central malls to create an experience of ‘celebration’ could even offer facilities for night club. The new ‘Central’ mall complexes, according to company officials, would also house multiplex theater facilities from Inox or PVR groups.
In short, ‘Central’ mall format stores are one stop destinations for Shopping, Eating, and Celebrating.
The premium chain, which began operating four years ago from Bangalore in May 2004, is currently running five stores at Bangalore, Pune, Vadodara, Gurgaon, and Hyderabad. The number of these mall format stores after expansion will go up to 12 stores in 2008.
‘Central’ stores are housed in big-format mall complexes that occupy around a lakh (0.1 million) of square feet area set up at an average cost of about Rs 2,500 per square feet.
“We expect to touch Rs 1400-crore revenues by June 2009. This format has worked extremely well for us,” said Rakesh Biyani, Chief Executive Officer (Retail), Future Group.
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Pune Builders // Jun 2, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The Future group’s Central brand of malls seems to be one of the front runners in the urban retail boom.It caters mostly to middle and upper class buyers and targets mostly at young professionals with a decent amount of disposable income.Big Bazar on the other hand caters to all stratas of society in urban India. It has already started entering tier 2 cities which speaks volumes of it’s common brand appeal.
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