IndiaRetailBiz

Spencer’s Retail, the retail arm of RPG group, known mainly for food & grocery retail, is foraying into lifestyle retail. The company is planning to set up five standalone stores of Beverly Hills Polo Club (BHPC)– a well-known global fashion brand from the US– in the NCR (National Capital Region) in the next three months, by June, 2009. The company plans to expand standalone retail chain beyond NCR in a phased manner later.

“Once the standalone BHPC stores become operational, we plan to expand BHPC’s product portfolio in India. While currently menswear, women wear, accessories, watches and the sunglass range is available here, we will expand into other products like perfume, shoe, belt and wallet,” said a Spencer’s Retail official (via).

Spencer’s Retail, which entered into an exclusive brand licence agreement with the US company last year, is already operating nine ’shop-in-shop’ outlets of BHPC inside its hypermarket format stores. The plan now is to make the iconic fashion brand available via stand-alone stores. The standalone stores will be occupying 1,000 to 2,000 sq ft of space.

Consequent to adverse impact on sales due to economic slowdown, Spencer’s Retail has been trying hard to grow, however, it ended up the FY 2009 with a turnover of Rs 1,050 crore. Spencer’s not only closed all its stores (6) in Ahmedabad, but was forced to close nearly 56 stores non-performing stores last year. The company, according to the report, has ended the year with no growth for ’same store sales’ during the year.