Mohena– the lingerie and nightwear brand– which has been specially designed for the Indian woman is looking at redefining style and comfort in Indian lingerie market.

Mohena will initially offer a range of 5 products comprising two lingerie and three nightwear products. While, lingeries will be priced between Rs. 299/- and Rs. 699/-, the nightwear products will be available between Rs. 449/- and 799/-.

“Our reading of Indian woman established her need to ‘express herself with comfort,’ to drop the tag of ‘traditional,’ and her growing desire to ‘celebrate comfort and freedom in contemporary Indian context,’ said Atulit Saxena, COO-Brands, Futurebrands Ltd, while explaining the brand’s concept.

“Mohena has a range of intimate wear which captures Indian femininity not only in design motifs, but also through the architecture of the product, through ease-breathing fabrics and fits suited to the Indian woman. With Mohena, we aim to create a brand that is reminiscent of the timeless portrayal of the Indian female form and that pays tribute to her beauty,” said Jaydeep Shetty, Head-New Business Development, Future Group.

Mohena is expecting to garner a turnover of Rs. 7-8 crores in the first full year of operations. The turnover is expected to then double each year for the next two years. Mohena will be a Rs. 20-25 crores brand by end of the third year of operations (by 2012) and is targeting to penetrate 20 per cent of the mass premium market in the main metros over the next 3 years, according to a press release issued by the company.

Apart from selling these products at Reliance Autozone’s specialty stores, Reliance will also set up shop-in-shop format retail outlets at Reliance Digital and some other group retail chains to offer the new generation navigational products to Indian consumers.

“Through co-operation with Reliance Autozone and its affiliated companies as strategic partners in India, Garmin has jumped a bigger step to be closer to the Indian market,” Garmin Corporation director (sales and marketing) Tony An said.

While, the Cayman Islands-based Garmin is one the world’s leading brands of GPS enabled navigation, communication and information devices, applications and related products Reliance Autozone is one of the niche retail format of Reliance Retail, a Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group company owned by Reliance Industries Limited.

Launched at Jamnagar in Gujarat on the 6th February, 2008, Reliance Autozone is presently operating six stores at Gurgaon, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, Jamnagar, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The Autozone specialty chain has, however, announced plans for setting up 10 to 15 new stores of the retail chain by March, 2011.

The Liverpool family store is part of 50 such family stores being planned to be set up by the company by March, 2011. Twenty five of these 50 family stores are slated to come up in the next three months.

Apart from family stores, the retailer is also embarking on an aggressive plan to expand its present network of 500 Liverpool menswear stores located across 22 states of the country. While 70 of the 500 stores are located in the home state of Gujarat, the retailer is also having its presence outside India. It is currently operating a store each in the UAE and Nepal.

Liverpool has drawn up plans to set up 700 new menswear stores by March 2010. It will also set up another 300 stores by March 2011, thus, taking the tally of new stores to 1,000 in less than 18 months. The total network of menswear outlets after completion of expansion will thus rise to 1,500 stores.

The company is also diversifying into footwear retailing by opening a new exclusive footwear chain. This retail chain is planning to set up 25 footwear stores this year, while another 75 stores are expected to be added soon, thereby, taking the number of footwear stores to 100 in the coming months.

The company has earmarked a sum of Rs 200 crore to fund its expansion.

Liverpool is presently sourcing its requirement from third party manufacturers, however, to augment supplies, it has decided to also set up a garments manufacturing facility in Ahmedabad. The plant is expected to be ready for production by 2010-11.

DHL already operates similar healthcare supply chain systems in Australia and other countries of the world. Through these services, DHL ensures that the customers receive ordered materials overnight. Time is of critical importance in delivery of healthcare products as it can make difference between life and death of a patient.

DHL also has the advantage of owning Blue Dart, an efficient and reputed courier service, having offices, warehouses, and trained staff spread all over the country.

Interestingly, Zeullig Pharma– one of the major Asian pharma distributors — which in the past had tried to set up a similar supply chain in the country was, however, unable to make much headway in the face of stiff resistance from AIOCD (All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists)– a trade body representing interests of over 500,000 chemists and druggists in India.

The situation, however, has since considerably changed as the AIOCD in the meantime appears to have lost its teeth as the trade body, despite several boycotts, has failed in stopping emergence and growth of organised modern pharma retail chains in the country. The trade body is opposed to the setting up of such chains in India.

The world’s largest $450 million Latin American chicken quick service restaurant chain, founded in 1971 in Guetmalan, offers “Flavor You Can’t Campero” and serves over 85 million customers every year at its 300-plus restaurants stores in 12 countries around the globe.

Pollo Compero, according to its Executive Vice President Gustavo Duran, is in advanced stage of negotiations with two local groups to set up restaurants under franchisee model in India. The retail chain is planning to set up 10 restaurants across the country by 2012. The first franchisee restaurant of the chain is likely to be unveiled in the third quarter of the calendar year. Indian franchisee will be responsible for making all the investment required for setting up Pollo Compero restaurants in India.

“We have already registered our brand with the authorities and our first restaurant will come up at Delhi by the third quarter of next year. We are in advanced stages of negotiations with a couple of local groups with the plan of setting up 10 restaurants by 2012,” said Duran to PTI.

Pollo Compero is looking at India as a major market for growth. It expects transactions of up to $100,000 per store per month, said Duran. “It is important for us to grow quickly for achieving volumes and revenue returns,” he added.

“Besides our famous global ranges including fried chicken, our Indian outlets would also have a range of vegetarians’ fare including salads,” said Duran.

In a related development, Amit Burman, Dabur’s Vice-Chairman, who has made strategic investment Lite Bite Foods, said that his company is planning to launch Pollo Campero in India by November.

“With Pollo Campero, our offerings to our customers will be complete, as this adds the fried chicken menu to our basket,” Burman said.

While, the air time retailing plan is expected to be unveiled sometime in early 2010, the group is planning for an annual revenue of Rs 1,000 crore from this business. This revenue stream will form an important part of Future group’s grand plan of achieving retailing turnover of Rs 25,000 crore in the next 4 years.

Talking about advantages of airtime business, Biyani, who was talking on sidelines of the India Retail Forum conference at Mumbai, said that while this business did not require any specific retail format, it provided much longer shelf life.

Future group is believed to have already initiated talks for purchase of bulk airtime with the country’s major telecom players including the sixth largest Tata Communication, which offers mobile dual technology (GSM and CDMA) services across the country.

Future group’s flagship retailing arm Pantaloon Retail (India) is incidentally already having a 50:50 joint venture in place with the UAE’s Axiom Telecom LLC to retail mobile phones, accessories, and services. The joint venture formed two years ago in July, 2007, was apart from developing backend sourcing infrastructure for the Pantaloon’s existing telecom retailing business, was set up to “exponentially” expand and scale up the telecom business of the group.

Axiom– the leading distributor, retailer and after sales support provider of mobile phones, phone accessories, wireless gadgets, memory and storage devices in the Middle East– is expected to create a nationwide network of state-of-the-art after sales service centers for mobile handsets in the country. The joint venture is planning to set up 1,500 specialty outlets across the country in the next 24 months.

After signing the joint venture agreement with Axiom in 2007, Kishore Biyani had said: “The current explosion of the telecom retail market that we are witnessing is breaking new barriers every day. There is no doubt that mobiles will soon be the single largest electronic products retailed in the country. Future Group, with the knowledge and expertise of Axiom Telecom’s systems and process in this area, will be best positioned to retail and service the Indian telecom market.”

Encouraged by success of the US-based quick service restaurant (QSR) chains like KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), McDonalds, and Pizza Hut, a number of their QSR conterparts like Church’s Chicken, Round Table Pizza (5th largest US pizza chain), and Papa Johns (over 3,000 restaurants worldwide) and CKE Restaurants Inc, as well as other food restaurant chains like Tropical Sno (shaved ice brand), and The Melting Pot (premier fondue restaurant brand), according to Nandi, are looking for setting shop in India’s growing consumer market. They too want to follow ‘franchisee’ model like their competitors for foraying into India.To assist potential Indian franchisees in establishing “new and profitable commercial relations” with such US companies that are keen to enter India, the US Commercial Services in India has designed a unique programme. The programme is called “Focus Franchising.” Through this programme, the US-based companies will help local franchisees to find equipment packages, obtain guidance on site selection and restaurant-level marketing. These companies will also offer training assistance and guidance to Indian franchisees.

According to Niren Chaudhary, Managing Director of its Indian subsidiary Yum! Restaurants India, the company will expand its present strength of 50 KFC restaurants by ten-fold to 500 KFC restaurants by 2015. Apart from KFC, the quick service food retailer also own the globally known restaurant brands of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. A&W Restaurants (Hamburgers) and Long John Silver’s (Seafood) brands are also from the global QSR leader’s stable.

Unveiling the blueprint of expansion, while inaugurating the 50th Indian outlet of KFC restaurant in India at Chennai, Niren Chaudhary said that the company is looking at opening 100 outlets by end 2010 and 300 outlets by 2011. KFC follows a mixed (company and franchise) model of ownership and management model for its restaurant outlets. Each KFC outlet requires an average investment of Rs 3 crore.

While, KFC will focus on big metro cities for its growth, it will continue to put emphasise on affordability and innovation to address the needs of young people between 19 and 29 years of age, who constitute its core customers.

The company has been quite happy with the growth of its brands in India. While, KFC grew by 20 per cent over the last year, the growth for ‘Pizza Hut’ (bigger and more famous), according to Chaudhry, was 6 to 7 per cent.

Buoyed by its performance in the country, the world’s largest restaurants retailer, which accounts for $14 billion in global turnover, has decided to unveil its third restaurant brand in India. The first restaurant of ‘Taco Bell’ brand, which specialises in Mexican delicacies, is scheduled to be launched at Bangalore before the end of this calendar year.

Taco Bell, according to Caudhry, will be introduced as a new concept for the young foodies in India. The brand will undertake expansion only after testing the local market.

“The Indian customer is waiting for new concepts in the quick service restaurant (QSR) segment. Besides, the Mexican delicacies will have a sure market in India with their spicy food,” said Chaudhary.

Hidesign, which has earlier entere into an agreement with Kishore Biyani-led Future group for launching a range of affordable leather accessories designed specifically to meet Indian needs, is planning to roll out these products under the brand name of Holii. The products are slated to be launched in the next month across major cities of the country.

According to Hidesign’s President Dilip Kapur, “Our new brand is completely a new concept and is very Indian in terms of its designs. We will be working closely with the Future Group, where they will provide expertise in retail and operations while we will be associated with brand building and design.”

Holii range of products will be across Pantaloon Retail’s department format stores located across all the major cities in the country.

As part of the agreement, Hidesign will sell its new range of products in The company will be introducing the new range in around 30 shop

Holii range of leather accessories is expected to garner a business of Rs 25 crore over a period of the next two years.

Apart from Holii, the company is also planning to unveil another collection of new accessories that has been designed by well known fashion designer Rohit Bal. Talking about this collection, the brand name of which is yet to be revealed, Kapur said, “The design will be Indian and will be out in the market by next month. This is the first time an Indian designer’s collection of our range will be sold in all the big cities outside India like Milan, New York.”

Apart from the company’s own exclusive stores, the new collection will be also be sold through 30-odd of Pantaloon and Shoppers’ Stops retail chains across the country.

Speaking about own stores, Kapoor said that the company will set up 12 exclusive stores this fiscal, of which 8 have already become operational. “We have already opened eight exclusive stores and will open 4 in the coming months,” said Kapur.

The premium accessories retailer currently operates 48 lifestyle stores across the country and is also present in 23 deveoped markets globally.

“In India there is a propensity for good food. It may not be a volume market but would be a niche market, which is expected to grow with time. This store would cater to a target audience that has a penchant for experimental food,” said Sanjiv Goenka, vice chairman, RPG Enterprises, while speaking on the occasion of inauguration of the new format store. RPG Enterprises is a Rs 150 billion diversified industrial and business conglomerate RPG (R P Goenka) group.

The 1,500 sq ft speciality gourmet SIS store is located inside the retailer’s 72,000 sq ft large flagship store in South City Mall of the metropolis.

The new format store offers a wide array of around 4,000 products comprising gourmet biscuits, breads, confectioneries, fresh fruits, vegetables, fruit juices, cheese, baby cereals, tea, coffee, chocolates, pastas, and essential ingredients for exotic cuisines of Thailand, China, Indonesia, Srilanka, America, Chile, France and Italy, among others. A ‘deli’ counter also offers different types of chilled and frozen ham, salamis and bacon, among other specialities.

There is a live kitchen area in the new format store as well. This area has been set up with a view to promote exotic recipes of gourmet food created by professional chefs.

Spencer’s Retail is planning to open six more such gourmet stores, among others, at Gurgaon, Bangalore and Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Spencer’s has earmarked an investment of Rs.3 crore on this format during this financial year. The company is expecting to earn a revenue of Rs.4 crore from this initiave as the new SIS format store is expected to generate a per sq ft revenue of Rs 1,500.

The world’s largest retailer and largest employer, which garners annual revenues of $404 billion and employee strength of 2.1 million persons worldwide, has set up a retail joint venture in India.

The Wal-mart’s  joint venture with Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises has already begun its operations in India. “Best Price Modern Wholesale” -the first ‘cash and carry’ (C&C) store of 50:50 jv– was unveiled at Amritsar in Punjab on the 30th May, 2009.

Wal-mart has been forced to begin its retail business with back-end cash and carry store as present policy guidelines do not allow foreign companies to invest (FDI) money in front-end, multi-brand stores in India.

Doug McMillon, who interestingly began his career with Wal-Mart as a truck loader, met several media organisations. Following are the main take-aways from his interviews with media persons in India.

• Wal-Mart continues to remain bullish on India. It is ready to accelerate investment plans in India depending on the number of projects, and the speed with which they can be set up by our company’s team in India. There is no dollar constraint for our business in India as it can draw as much funds as it wants out from around $5 billion set aside by the company for our international business.

• The Indian government want us to strengthen the supply and cold chains and work with small businesses. While, FDI in retail would be positive for this country, the government here alone knows what is best for the country. We are patient and are ready to wait for the sector to open for the foreign investment (FDI). It is not our timeline to determine.

• We are long-term thinkers. We like to start slowly and learn the business and make our mistakes and fix them and once it is time, the government, customers and society is ready, we can do things faster if that is the case. But if not, we will just continue to go along as we are and have a long-term view.

• The wholesale opportunity in India is big. I believe there is a role for us to play here serving kiranas and hotels and restaurants and other people and we’ll work on those things.

• We are trying to create the retail infrastructure as we serve the Bharti stores with cold chain, with a relationship with farmers, and others, so that we are ready to open stores directly, if and when the opportunity is available to us.

• Asia appears to be offering tremendous growth opportunity. I expect India and China to be at the top of the list. We would like to see China and India in particularly to be long-term drivers of growth and hopefully that’s the way things will play out.

• Post economic downturn, consumption of food and beverage has gone up, while it has gone down for apparel or car. As a consequence, we have hit a plateau in our sourcing from India.

• We have now begun to directly procure from farmers in India, whom we encourage to do new things. We also share their risks.
• We could face the challenge of economic downturn, because the way in which we manage our cost. Sam Walton (founder of the company) built Wal-Mart for a time like this, when consumers would benefit greatly.
• Wal-Mart creates elaborate training opportunities for its Associates (employees) to grow in the organisation fast. I began my career as a truck loader, while the current CEO of Sam’s club (cash & carry business) started as a cashier at Wal-Mart.

The new IT brandshop is a conceptually different distribution model as Samsung India, which so far has focused on targeting consumers through channels and to some extent through government sales, has for the first time gone in for its own exclusive retail store.

The new ‘IT brandshop’ store located at Arihant Arcade, Ameerpet in Hyderabad will to showcase Samsung’s entire range of IT and consumer products, including, notebooks, netbooks, monitors, printers, consumables, digital cameras, digital camcorders, MP3 players and mobile phones. The shop will also offer IT accessories like laptop bags, headphones etc.

“Retail is a big thrust area for us as we are looking at enhancing our consumer interface this year. The IT Brand Shop will represent a one-stop shop for all Samsung IT products, ranging from notebooks to printers. In the coming months, we plan to set up IT Brand Shops in the other metros as well,” said JungSoo Shin, president and CEO, Samsung South West Asia, who inaugurated the store along with Ranjit Yadav, director, IT, Samsung India, in the presence of other Samsung representatives, dealers and customers.

The new Samsung ‘IT Brand Shop’ store has also created an ‘Experience Zone.’ This zone showcases commonly used applications like music, gaming, movie and imaging. Other digital products have been also integrated into this Demo zone to showcase convergence of digital devices.

The decision of the world’s largest home products retailer comes in the wake of the company’s desire to own 100 per cent of equity in its India operations. This, however, is not possible as currently the country allows foreign direct investment of only up to 51 per cent in single-brand retail. IKEA’s hopes of change in the policy guidelines following the installation of new investment friendly UPA government (sans support of the Left) were, however, dashed as the first official statement of the new government as reflected in the President’s address to the parliament did not contain any positive signals on this account. India’s new commerce minister Anand Sharma even went to the extent of saying that there is no poosibility of changing the prevailing investment norms for retail in the near future. IKEA, according to media reports, had not only zeroed in on the site for its first store, but had also employed a few people to set up its new business.

IKEA, though, has not given up on its India plans entirely, as it can not ignore its vast market and wants to be a part of its retail growth story. “In a few years we are bound to reconsider our decision,” said IKEA sources.

While, the new government recognises the importance of opening up the country’s retail sector, it may do so gradually in a phased manner as two of the government’s allies Mamata Benerjee-led Trinamul Congress and DMK are vehemently opposed to the entry of big corporates and foreign retailers in the retail sector. IKEA may have a better luck than multi-brand retailers as the government may consider allowing 100 per cent FDI in speciality single-brand retail and luxury retail, which do not affect fortunes of millions of small traders who for centuries are engaged in retail sector now called ‘conventional’ or ‘traditional’ sector.

IKEA was founded in Sweden by Ingvar Kamprad. It specialises in selling functional products that can be self-assembled by customers. It chose to specialise in selling flat-pack products as they help the company in controlling transportation costs. The popularity of IKEA can be gauged from the fact that its website which displayed a range of around 12,000 products was visited by over 470 million persons in 12 months. IKEA sources its requirements from nearly 1,400 vendors located in around 50 countries across the world. Even, vendors from India account for sourcing of $500 million worth of home products.

The 1,000 sq ft boat, which can accommodate up to 15 shoppers on board any time, is the brainchild of Consumerfed (Kerala State Co-operative Consumers Federation Ltd), an apex body of consumer cooperatives in the state working under the auspices of the state’s Cooperation Department.

While, working between 8 AM and 6 PM, the floating supermarket will cater to the needs of consumers in 17 panchayat areas of the Kuttanad region in the state. Consumerfed has identified 50-odd locations for anchoring the floating supermarket on boat to cater to consumers.

The supermarket apart from serving the needs of isolated and inacceible areas has another social objective as well. While, it will offer a 2 per cent discount on all commodities, the discount will be increased to 3 per cent for the customers belonging to SC/ST.

The floating supermarket was flagged off by G. Sudhakaran, the state cooperation minister, at a function held at Alappuzha on Sunday.

Amul, the most famous Indian brand of milk and milk-based products, owned by Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which achieved an annual turnover of Rs 6,711 crore in 2008-09, has now become the largest retailer of processed food products in the country.

“So far, there is only one FMCG company ahead of Amul in retail sector. But in food sector, we have become the largest retail company with a turnover of over Rs 6,700 crore,” said R S Sodhi, chief general manager of GCMMF.

While, Amul products are currently available to consumers across India through a network of more than two million retail outlets, Amul has also begun to expand its network of its exclusive retail outlets popularly known as Amul parlours (”Amul Utterly Delicious”). The concept of exclusive retail parlors developed in 2002 has now gained momentum with the approvals number crossing 4500 outlets. These parlors, located in various towns and cities across the country, are mostly owned by franchisees, though some of them are still operated by the company.

The large part of the credit for creation of over 2,000 parlors during the current year has been given by the company to its channel partners (wholesale distributors) who embraced the concept by not only by starting their own parlors, but also motivated franchises to set up new parlors, that apart from generating business are also creating employment.

Apart from garnering sales turnover of over Rs. 200 crore during the current year, the parlors have also become an effective platform for introducing all the innovative products of the company.

Amul has also opened food stalls across major railway stations of the country to cater to the demand for quality food of travellers and commuters across the country. While 50 such parlors/stalls have already been set up, 300 more stalls/parlors are being set up in the coming year with the support from IRCTC.

Amul has also begun setting up ice-cream scooping parlors.These have turned out to be another blockbuster for the company. Plans are afoot to set up 200 such parlors during the year.

Taking cue from the success of parlors and commitment of its sales team and channel partners Amul is planning to take the total tally of Amul parlors to 10,000 by adding 6000 parlors during the current financial year (2009-10).