IndiaRetailBiz

Mothercare, the iconic UK-based, retailer, which operates 21 retail stores (8 standalone and 13 shop-in-shop format outlets) for kids and expecting mothers in India, according to an ET report, may be looking for severing its ties with Shoppers’ Stop.

The Rahejas-led Shoppers’ Stop is among the country’s pioneering and leading listed retailers. It operates a flagship retail chain under its own name of department format stores across India. Soppers Stop operates Mothercare store in the country under an exclusive franchise agreement signed with the UK-based retailer in August, 2005.

While, standalone Mothercare stores in India ocuppy between 3,000 and 6,000 sq ft of space, the shop-in-shop outlets, which are located inside Shoppers Stop stores occupy an average of 2,000 sq ft in space.

Mothercare has a vision of becoming the country’s number 1 retailer of mother’s to be & baby products in its target segment. It sources 70 per cent of its product requirements in India from global vendors.

Mothercare, the £723 million retailer operating over 1,000 stores across 50 countries of the world, according to reports, is reported to be unhappy with performance of its stores operated by Shoppers Stop in India. The UK-based retailer, according to unconfirmed reports, is believed to have already commenced talks with Trent Limited, a Noel Tata headed retail arm of Tata group, for a possible tieup with the latter. Trent currently operates three retail chains under Westside, Star Bazaar, and Landmark brand names.

In fact, there is not much difference the retail formats operated by the two companies. Westside, the flagship brand of the retail is a lifestyle chain of department store format stores similar to Shoppers Stop’s flagship chain. Both of these draw a large part of their revenues from lifestyle fashion and homeware products and focus on private labels. Star Bazaar is a hypermarket value chain that mainly deals in food, grocery, fresh foods, apparel, and fast moving consumer products. Shoppers’ Stop has a sister retailer in hypermarmarket space called HyperCity. Landmark, on the other hand is a books and leisure products (music, games, toys, stationery) retail chain similar to Shoppers’ Stop’s ‘Crossword’ retail chain.

While, Shoppers’ Stop has several franchise and licensing arrangements with iconic European retail brands, Trent has recently tied up with Tesco, the world’s third largest UK-based food and grocery retailer, to set up a chain of 50 hypermarket stores. Of course, Tesco will provide only back-end and technical services as still no foreign investment is allowed in India in multi-brand retail.