Big Bazar plans to add 15 to 30 stores every year to existing 200 across country

Hyderabad, February 23, 2016: FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO), Hyderabad Chapter has organised ‘Bricks & Clicks’, an interactive session about the ‘Online’ and ‘Offline’ Retail world here in city on Tuesday at Hotel Grand Kakatiya today.

The interaction session was held with Rakesh Biyani Joint MD, Future Group that owns popular supermarket chains like Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar, lifestyle stores like Brand Factory, Central etc. and Dr. Srikanth Sundararajan.Venture Partner of Helion Venture Partners, an early to mid-stage, India focused Venture Fund with over $ 600 million under management. It was moderated by Manish Chheda. Co Founder & MD, Auctus Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a management consulting and advisory firm.

Speaking on the occasion, Rakesh Biyani, said Big Bazar will add 15 to 20 stores in next three months to the existing 200 stores located in 102 cities across the country. These will come up in existing as well as new locations. We will keep on adding 15 to 30 stores every year in next five years. Our goal is to present in about 300 towns and 6500 pin codes across the country.

We have a footfall of 330 million across our stores all over India every year. While a mere 80 million shop online, he said.

Future Group has a significant prominence in Indian retail and fashion sectors, with popular supermarket chains like Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar, lifestyle stores like Brand Factory, Central etc. Every day, Future Group brings multiple products, opportunities and services to millions of customers in India. Through more than over 17 million square feet of retail space, it serves customers in 102 cities across the country. It helps India shop, save and realize dreams and aspirations to live a better quality of life every day, he said.

We are a little over INR 20,000 crore group. We are Consumer Centric and Indian Centric Group, said Rakesh Biyani. We have lot of affiliation to Hyderabad. Our very first store came up in Panjagutta. Our association with city is very unique. We opened first store of pantaloon in Kolkata in 1997 and very next day we opened in Hyderabad. Similarly our first Central Store came up in Bangalore and second store in Hyderabad. We enjoy tremendous association with Hyderabad, said Rakesh Biyani.

We will be rolling out our Omni channel retail strategy. This will consumer a single view of the retail business through different channels like mobile, online or physical stores, he said. We know the power of digital space. We will go online through Omni Channel. We are exploring various possibilities like digital ordering within the store. We are also investing in Digital space. We can’t ignore its power, said Rakesh. With this Consumers can order online, and collect at the store or get it delivered. They can even run an online cart. They can even place an order and choose to get it delivered at home, he informed

Future Group is not inspired by any western retail model. We are a true Indian company. One of our core value is Indianness. If that is not there we will loose link with Indian customers, he said. We customize our products to every single market. We invest a lot to understand Indian communities and their preferences, he said.

Despite the ecommerce boom still 92 percent of retail sales of large Retails chains like Tesco PLC, a British multinational grocery and general merchandise happens offline., he said. People prefer to have touch and feel of the product

Replying to a question, Dr. Srikanth Sundararajan said both online and offline exist. Neither of them are threat to each other. They continue to grow. Both online and offline are good for each other. Both will liverage technology, he said.

Earlier, welcoming the gathering, Rekha Lahoti, Chairperson of Hyderabad Chapter described session on “Bricks & Clicks” as very topical given changing canvas etailing world. It came, it saw, it conquered – these legendary words provide the perfect summary description of how the e-commerce market took the world by storm, she said.

Speaking further, Rekha remarked that before, we had online and offline retail never the twain shall meet. Now, both worlds are merging into each other, sped on by the increase in mobile usage, which now represents 60 percent of the time spent online. It’s no longer a question of online vs. offline; consumers want to be able to shop in-store or online, whenever they want, wherever they are.

Previously, it was an accepted wisdom that offline retail needed to go online, but now there’s the reverse trend too, as many online enterprises are realizing the benefits of having an offline presence or a physical store, Rekha informed.

Savvy retailers are gearing up to fuse their online and offline offerings to give customers a seamless shopping experience, she added.

Marketing plays an important role with respect to both. But the base of customer of offline retail is quite low as compared to online business where customer base is the entire world. We have experts amongst us to answer our queries and satisfy us with all essential implications Rekha said.

Speaking about Skill Development initiative she announced that FICCI FLO has signed an MOU with Uber for women driver’s employment. FLO has also signed an MOU with Mahila Hath in Delhi.

On CSR Initiative, Rekha informed FLO had trained 2200 children from three government schools in spoken English. They are now confident and on par with the regular school children.

Speaking about forthcoming programs, Rekha informed that a program was planned on March 8th, on the occasion of International Woman's day where 3 powerful women speakers Elahe Hiptoola, Vinita Dawra Nangia and Nina Davuluri(Miss America) , each one would be talking about Cinema, Relationships and Leadership respectively.