New Business Opportunity

Winner Sports, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pantaloon Retail India that runs Planet Sports chain of retail stores, has revamped

Tommy Hilfiger, the premium international fashion brand, recently forayed into children’s wear segment in India. The brand made its India debut in April 2004 through Arvind Murjani Brands, a 50:50 JV between the Murjani group and the Ahmedabad-based Arvind Mills. At present, the JV company is retailing from 15 outlets, but from mid-December, and they will tour North India to expand its presence. Over the next nine months, the company plans pan-India presence in smaller cities. Arrival of Tommy Hilfiger outlets in smaller cities across India is a bigger opportunity for the in-store signage companies.

Trevor Beattie is not new to India, nor is India to him. Yet, his agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB) that

Real estate major DLF Ltd that currently operating DLF Emporio in the capital is considering to start similar projects in other big cities, including Hyderabad and Chennai, that are seeing traction for high-end brands. The company is currently in talks with the existing tenants at its DLF Emporio for the same. There are some 10-12 anchor brands the company is in discussion with to bring up similar models in other cities. Expansion of DLF malls across the big cities will be an added opportunity for the signage companies engaging into in-store POP displays and others.

Metro Cash and Carry India, the Indian subsidiary of the German wholesale retailer Metro, plans to enter Punjab next year,

India’s continuing baby boom is kicking up business opportunities for both domestic and foreign apparel makers. After the launch of

The Essar Group-owned telecom retailer, The MobileStore, is planning to add 700 outlets in the next six months. The company already has 1,200 outlets across 200 cities and 45 per cent market share in organised telecom retail. The company has started the process of adding 200 stores and has around 100 stores in the pipeline. To hasten its plans, it decided to adopt the franchise model in Tier-II and Tier-III cities and towns. The model will help the company add around 500-600 stores, leveraging the existing supply chain system which has already been set up by the company. Such mega expansion of MobileStore outlets is an added advantage to the signage companies dealing in in-store displays, POP, etc.

Leading retailer and fashion apparel-maker Provogue India plans to foray into the fashion watch segment soon and is eyeing around Rs 20-25-crore revenue from this business. The company, that forayed into the retail business with casual and semi-casuals targeting the youth, especially men, has tied-up with global watch-maker Fossil for manufacturing the products from the latter’s unit in Himachal Pradesh. The company plans to start retailing its watch brand at all prominent Provogue stores and watch outlets. Currently, there are 120 Provogue stores and the company plans to add about 75 more in the current fiscal. The new set-up of the Provogue stores and its expansion is an added opportunity every in-store signage company can harvest in near future.

Reliance Retail is looking at opening about 3,000-4,000 stores over the next 3-4 years across all its 19 formats. The expansion is a part of our US$6-billion investment the company had announced in 2006. Currently, the country’s largest organised retail firm has 1,000 large and small outlets. These are spread across formats such as Reliance Fresh, Reliance Footprint, Reliance Time Out, Reliance Digital, Reliance Wellness, Reliance Trendz, Reliance Autozone, Reliance Super, Reliance Mart, Reliance iStore, Reliance Home Kitchens and Reliance Jewel. The company’s new stores would mainly be in Tier I and II cities and signage companies engaging in the retail sector will find a new business pace along with the Reliance Retail’s expansion move.

Global retail giant Wal-Mart in its joint venture with Bharti Enterprises plans to open 15 outlets in its wholesale format

After the north, Bharti Retail is planning to land upon the western India with its first hypermarket in Mumbai. The

Timberland has set out on an all new expedition by partnering with Reliance Brands through a license cum distribution agreement

Dabur India Ltd will start adopting the franchise route for its retail stores ‘Newu’ and explore smaller format stores in order to expedite expansion. The company’s subsidiary, H&B Stores Ltd that currently operates 22 ‘Newu’ stores primarily in North India, is also looking to open up to 150 new stores in 2011-12 and enter in the western region. It is also trying express or smaller formats that have quick turnaround time, besides focusing on ‘beauty’ as a category, as it looks to break even in the next two years. The new venture of Dabur entering into new expansion move will be an added advantage for signage players dealing with in-store displays.

Footwear major, Liberty Shoes, is planning to enhance its footprint across the country by tapping Tier II towns in the

Fellow foodies will have great time as Blue Ginger, the Taj Group’s first Vietnamese outlet (and second in India after

The premium sportswear market now has one more player – Italian lifestyle brand Fila. This would be the US$1.5-billion brand’s

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is planning to expand its fuel retail outlets with food courts, cinema halls and provision

Identifying scale as an immediate priority, Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) intends to renew a rapid expansion drive to compete with mom-and-pop outlets and street markets, besides rival store chains. There is an opportunity for 2,000-5,000 stores. The retailer first plans to expand in large cities, classified as tier I and tier II, before entering tier III and tier IV cities and towns. The plan for rural India is to begin with sourcing the produce before entering the front-end in retail. Now the sunshine opprtunity is lying ahead for the in-store signage companies with the opening of RRL mom-and-pop stores.

Apparel manufacturer and retailer Cantabil announces its plans to enter the sportswear segment in the next two years. The company currently sells casual and formal wear for men, women and kids under ‘Cantabil’ and ‘La Fanso’ brands. The company, however, announces that their current focus is to expand its retail reach by opening more stores under the existing brands and also enhance production capacity. With such Cantabil’s expansion plan, signage players engaging in in-store segment or retail sector would find a new business opportunity.

Swedish home furniture giant Ikea pitched for fast-growing Indian retail sector to open up its huge retail precedence. The furnishings chain, which sources 500 million euros (655 million dollars) in textiles and other goods from India annually, plans to boost that figure to one billion euros within three to four years. If Ikea — famed for its flat pack stylish furniture — could open up stores in India it could supply at least half the volume of goods from Indian production sources as it does in China and Russia. And most of all, Ikea stores will furnish a new business for in-store signage companies.