Maternity Store – Mahindra Retail is letting US- based brand ‘Destination Maternity’, an exclusive maternity store grow beyond its Mom & Me stores in order to tap the growing demand for maternity wear in India.

The firm, which has a master franchisee agreement with the US-based Destination Maternity Corporation, has set up the first ‘Destination Maternity’ store in Gurgaon.

“We have been operating shop-in-shops of ‘Mother Maternity’ brand by the US-based company since 2009 within Mahindra Retail’s Mom & Me stores. Now, we have decided to open exclusive maternity store under ‘Destination Maternity’ brand,” Mahindra Retail CEO Venkataraman told reporters here.

Maternity Store ‘Destination Materinity’ to wed Mahindra

Mahindra Retail will set up and operate ‘Destination Maternity’ stores in India as a master franchisee. At present Mahindra Retail operates a total of 77 Mom & Me stores, with Destination Maternity shop-in-shops.

Going ahead, while the existing maternity store shop-in-shop will continue to function, the two partners will open stores for the US brand at other big locations like Mumbai and Bangalore, he said but did not provide details on the number of stores planned this year.

Destination Maternity Corporation operates around 650 exclusive maternity store ’Destination Maternity’ and over 2,000 shop-in-shops in the US and also has a presence in Canada, Middle East and South Korea.

Commenting on its India plans, Destination Maternity Corporation CEO Edward Krell said: “India offers tremendous growth opportunity. We look forward to opening many more exclusive maternity store in India and have long term plans here.”

Maternity Store ‘Destination Maternity’ houses apparel under three brands

When asked if the two partners were considering expansion into India’s neighbouring markets, Mahindra Retail’s Venkataraman said: “Right now our partnership is for India, but we may explore other markets too.”

A Destination Maternity stores houses maternity apparel under under labels — Motherhood Maternity, Kriti Maternity and A Pea in the Pod.

Besides, Mahindra Retail also has an aggressive plan to expand its own retail chain Mom & Me that sells products and services for mother and child.

“At present we operate 77 Mom & Me stores across India in over 25 cities. The plan is to add around 50 new stores in this fiscal,” Venkataraman said without sharing financial details.

Mahindra Retail, a part of the $ 14.4 billion Mahindra Group, also operates seven exclusive toy stores under ‘Beanstalk’ brand.

“We plan to add another 30-40 Beanstalk stores this year,” Venkataraman added.

Maternity Store

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The store offers groceries, ladies’ wear, kids’ wear, men’s wear, footwear, accessories, luggage, crockery, home furnishing, kitchen appliances and plastic goods all under one roof, V-Mart General Manager – Operations Jai Banerjee said.

“We want to make shopping a pleasant experience. We are planning to state five more stores in the state, which will also provide employment opportunity to the local youth and provide larger shopping opportunities,” Banerjee said.

He said it was a “difficult decision” to start a showroom in the Valley because of its history, where conflict has taken a huge toll of the business sector. “Our Managing Director was very keen on opening a store in Srinagar. You have to start the ball rolling somewhere,” he said.

Banerjee said they have done basic market research of the Valley customers and have worked out their shopping preferences. The owner of the mall where the showroom is located said the new retail chain culture will at least give a respite to shoppers from the traffic mess.

“When all things are available under one roof, no one will bother to go around,” Mushtaq Ahmad Chayya, a leading hotelier and owner of the Sara City Centre Mall, said.

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The Arcadia retail group tycoon and businesses including Vodafone, Barclays and Boots are the focus of rising anger over government cuts that campaigners say could be avoided if alleged tax dodging were stamped out, bringing in some £25bn a year to the public purse.

In Brighton, protesters superglued themselves to Topshop’s window, while security guards in Oxford Street bundled reporters and protesters out of the store before around 70 to 80 demonstrators, chanting “Philip Green pay your tax”, left voluntarily and moved on to Arcadia’s BHS store, which also had to be closed to shoppers, as did a Vodafone shop.

Green, recently made an adviser on public spending by David Cameron, is under fire because his wife, his firm’s direct owner, lives in Monaco, a tax haven. Amid growing disquiet over spending cuts, the latest protests took place in Birmingham, Glasgow, York, Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham, under the banner of “UK Uncut” – a new movement that is gathering support via social networking sites.

One protester, Ed Greens, 20, from north-west London, said: “We know Topshop owes the government tax. Together with companies like Vodafone, big businesses owe £126bn. We are taking direct action on companies like Topshop .” Eileen Smith, 78, said. “I support anyone who is fighting these terrible cuts. How dare this government say we are all in this together when 24 members of the cabinet are millionaires and men like Philip Green and his cronies are feted. The hypocrisy is sickening.”

Her friend Mary, 64, agreed: “And don’t let anyone say this protest is hijacked by anarchists. If anything, it’s hijacked by pensioners!” UK Uncut held similar protests in October after Vodafone settled a large tax avoidance claim with the government but paid a lot less than expected.

James Kelly, a spokesman for UK Uncut, said: “Tax avoidance is a big issue and we believe this is the alternative to the cuts the government are making.”

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Group company Pantaloon Retail India, which opened its 50th store spread across 31,109 sq ft here, plans to add another 50 Pantaloon stores across metros and smaller cities. “In the next 3-4 years, we are looking to add around 50 new Pantaloon stores across the country,” Future Group Director and CEO (Retail) Rakesh Biyani told reporters here.

He said 18 such stores are in the process of being opened and agreements with various real estate developers have been signed for a dozen more. The company will focus on top seven cities in India along with the various state capitals under its expansion.

A Pantaloon store is spread across 25,000 sq ft to 30,000 sq ft on an average, he added. The funds for the new Pantaloon stores will be part of the Rs 2,100-crore investments to be made by the Future Group over the next three-years, which was announced earlier this month.

Besides, the group is also changing the look and feel of its Pantaloon stores by making it more colourful and vibrant, starting with the latest one here, with a focus to attract more young consumers. “With the new ambience within the store, we are targetting young high spending consumers. In a period of two to three years, our existing Pantaloon stores, especially in the metros will also be revamped,” Biyani said.

The Pantaloon stores contribute 15-20 per cent of Pantaloon Retail India’s total sales, a company official said. Pantaloon Retail India had posted a turnover of Rs 2,581.42 crore in the quarter ended September, as compared to Rs 1,954.21 crore last year. Its net profit stood at Rs 42.76 crore, as against Rs 26.33 crore the year-ago period.

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Eight-foot-high (2.4 metre) backlit images at Suit Supply’s west London store show a sharp-suited man alongside a woman touching her own naked breast and revealing a glimpse of nipple, a man driving as he gropes the breast of his female passenger, and a seated woman reclining obligingly while her male companion lifts up her dress to peek at her underwear.

The pictures, two of which are in the shop’s window, have provoked complaints to Westfield and the Advertising Standards Authority, along with protests on Twitter. Chief among the concerns are that the images are sexist in objectifying women, and that they are displayed where they can be easily seen by children.

The images in the shop windows are tame compared with others on the firm’s website, which, according to one complainant, border on “S&M style activity”.

The Dutch advertising watchdog is investigating several complaints over a Suit Supply poster campaign in the Netherlands, and the company has said it has had to remove several images from its Facebook company website because they were “deemed offensive”.

Joey Abbis-Stubbs, 23, a women’s charity worker from Westbourne Grove, London, wrote of her Westfield experience on the beyondretrograde blog: “[In] a family-friendly shopping centre, I am sure many parents would be upset to have their children exposed to such material while taking them to the newly opened indoor ice-skating rink.”

Condemning the photographs as “blatant objectification of women”, she added: “As well as offending parents and children, did Westfield not think that this sexually submissive and explicit advertising campaign would cause offence to its many female visitors?

“At least with Facebook you would assume people would have to actively seek out the company page, not just walk past in one of London’s busiest malls on the way to Marks & Spencer.” Abbis-Stubbs told the Guardian she had approached Westfield, and been told it was “a sign of the times”.

“They said they would look into it. But the adverts are going to be up until the end of the January sales, so lots and lots of children will have the opportunity to see them.”

A reply forwarded to her from Suit Supply stated: “Our campaign is called ‘Shameless’ and is shot by the renowned photographer Carli Hermès. In our opinion the photographs of the campaign are a well-balanced mix of style, humour and sex, the essence of fashion! We fully disagree that our campaign would be obscene and denigrating towards women. On the contrary, the women depicted in the photographs are obviously in the lead.”

Abbis-Stubbs said: “That misses the point, really.” It is not the first time Suit Supply has launched a controversial ad campaign – last year it received criticism for a Start Smoking campaign aimed at selling smoking jackets.

The Shameless campaign has been condemned on fashion and celebrity website Jezebel as “creepy and porno-like”. “Wearing a snazzy suit most def gets you free upskirt peeks and kinky kitchen play, guys,” it said. There are calls on Twitter for people to complain to Suit Supply, though mixed among those are comments from tweeters who approve of the campaign as “hot” and “sexy” rather than “sexist”.

The Advertising Standards Authority confirmed it had received 10 complaints, but as it only deals with paid-for space, and not commercial premises, it has referred complainants to Consumer Direct, which would not comment.

Westfield and Suit Supply did not respond to requests for comment.

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You could hardly fail to notice the brash blue and yellow signs welcoming customers to “the world’s leading technology store“. The US discount electricals chain is slashing prices by up to 50% to draw customers from the stalwarts of the highly competitive British high street, and its new UK website has gone live.

Analysing this commercial threat in forensic detail is Hugh Harvey, managing director of Comet Group, one of the oldest electrical retailers in Britain and the first to head to out-of-town stores in the 1970s. Best Buy got its British rivals twitching when it announced publicly that it was prepared to incur losses of $55m (£34m) in its first year of trading in Britain in order to grab market share from rivals.

Harvey is under no illusions about what this means for his company, already struggling from competition on the internet and with established rivals like the revamped Dixons breathing down its neck.

Confusion

He says: “It is the largest electrical retailer in the world but it is principally a US retailer and it is trying to establish big box retailing here. I welcome the competition and anything that makes us better. It’s a tough gig. But if you bring across a US concept to the UK you are going to have to work hard because the incumbent retailers are good at what they do.”

Comet has had its share of problems. Confusion has been one of them. Five years ago the chain underwent a £20m rebranding to differentiate itself from other players in the market, particularly Currys, as both company logos used white letters on a red background and their names were easily confused.

But the new orange-and-white logo has not attracted universal approval, and the store has faced criticism that its new-style stores are too small and that the quality of service can still be hit and miss.

It is all a far cry from the firm’s humble beginnings. Comet was founded in the 1930s by entrepreneur George Hollingbery, who opened his first store in Hull, charging radio batteries but also selling and renting out electrical products. As Comet expanded under the stewardship of his son Michael, he came up with the wheeze of removing the goods from their boxes to display them — unheard of at the time.

In 1984, Comet became part of the Kingfisher Group but is now owned by Kesa Electricals, the third-largest electrical retailer in Europe. Turnover last year was £1.65bn and pre-tax profits £11.5m. Even after the World Cup boost, like-for-like sales have been falling, down 1.4% in the full year to the end of April.

Harvey strongly defends the group’s current approach – smaller stores with more emphasis on service – and points out that before his stewardship Comet had gone down what he calls the “big shed” route – and customers did not like it. “Until the late 1990s, stores were averaging 10,000 sq ft .

Then just before my time the business went big – went ‘copy America’, this time with very big out-of-town stores. The change that we’ve got to grips with over the last five years is that’s not what customers want because very big stores are not female-friendly and there is too much choice.”

The chain has 250 stores, including 50 two-storey units designed to maximise space while maintaining a more intimate “feel”. At the opening of the second, on his home territory in Speke in Liverpool, Harvey relates how “I got chatting to a lady and she said: ‘Your previous store felt like a shed, but this feels a bit like John Lewis’. That was deliberate as we’re not about having the biggest stores. We are about having the most appropriate-sized stores and the best shopping experience and service.

“Today the role of the internet is to provide the catalogue and the role of  the store is to provide the experience of the showroom – almost like a department store. We have made the transition from an out-of-town shed operator to an out-of-town store and our fit and finish is much different to how it was.”

But he adds: “Less than half – in fact about a third of customers – have done their research online. It is different from five years ago when people went in store and then bought online, but of course the price differential has massively reduced. So the vast majority of customers are buying from stores  because that is where they see the product.

In September Comet’s logo was freshened up and a new slogan – “come and play” – launched. Harvey says the new branding is trying to convey a fun and friendly approach to its customers, appealing to different target audiences to come into stores and try out some of the interactive displays, such as 3D TV.

That experience is important, Harvey adds, as the vast majority of major purchases are also family purchases. “We measure the footfall and during the busiest times at weekends it is family-based. The kids will disappear to the computing/digital camera area, the ladies graduate to kitchens – typically these days to toasters and kettles, as that’s how people can change the look of their kitchen. And the men are down in the TV section salivating over a 65in flat-screen TV.”

Business ticks over throughout the year, with spikes on public holidays, but with peak sales concentrated in the four or five weeks in the run-up to Christmas. Harvey’s own predictions for Comet’s best-sellers are Apple’s iPad, along with 3D TVs (its most expensive is a 65in Panasonic at £4,499.99) and cake mixers and food processors, where sales have been boosted by the BBC TV’s Great British Bake-off series.

Hughes says that the company’s objective is to help people to make the best of technology – in the broadest sense. ” A halogen hob is technology to some people. To others it is just a sexy-looking oven or hob.”

To underline this, Harvey points to his iPad and makes a distinction between “geeky” buyers and ordinary people who simply recognise how technology can change their lives.

Scary

“The business has historically been pushed by technology and there is a larger segment of people who are less interested in how the thing actually works and more interested in what it can do to improve their lives. That is why Apple is so successful because their products are not scary but are high technology.”

Harvey has just heard that Marks & Spencer is ditching its short-lived move into selling household gadgets such as TVs and iPods, as part of new boss Marc Bolland’s drive to consolidate its core business and the strength of its own-brand products.

He does not seem surprised by the announcement: “Electricals are a highly specialist area of retailing. It is a tough market. Its margins are tight and basically they can make more money from selling pots and pans – and I should know as I did it at Woolworths.

It is a sector which demands a high degree of specialism. Virtually everything you use has to be used in conjunction with something else. In the old days it was a bunch of wires, but now it is extraordinary that it is virtually wireless.”

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“By the end of this financial year, we will have 50 electronic retail stores and by the next three to five years, the total number of stores will increase to 500 at an investment of Rs 250 crores,” Baid Group Managing Director Pushpesh Baid told media here.

“We are launching these stores in keeping with Baid Group’s ideology of diversifying into different business verticals,” he said. “We will expand the store chain to 200 cities and towns in the Tier-C and Tier-B segment. Instead of the metro cities, we are going to be very aggressive in smaller cities and towns, which are seeing a very high rate of growth in electronic sales,” Baid said.

The group has already launched a store each in Kolkata and Kolhapur in Maharashtra earlier this month. Their ‘mobiles n gadgets’ store has a wide collection of mobile handsets, laptops, digital cameras, accessories and other gadgets.

Though the core business of the group is textiles, it has diversified into jewellery, IT, metals, power, retail, healthcare and hospitality, spa & wellness centers.

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Matahari is selling Hypermart, Indonesia’s second-biggest hypermart chain after PT Carrefour Indonesia, to focus on its core healthcare and property assets. Matahari is a major department store chain in Indonesia. Matahari is operated by PT. Matahari Department Store is a subsidiary of PT. Matahari Putra Prima is a publicly traded company.

It has the biggest coverage in Indonesia and has a store in almost every mall and plaza in Indonesia. Matahari also runs a retailing business. Nowadays, almost every Matahari Supermarket converts to Hypermart. It was founded to compete with French giant Carrefour’s Indonesian operations.

Both Hypermart and Carrefour compete to be the biggest retailer in Indonesia. Giant Hypermarket, a Malaysian retailer, has a smaller market presence.

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“We want to appeal to youth and be seen as an affordable fashion brand, so the first thing is to make stores look inviting to draw footfall. We are currently in the process of giving a new look to outlets,” Liberty Shoes Managing Director Anupam Bansal told PTI.

The firm is in the process of changing its logo and rope in a celebrity endorser to be face of the brand, he added without giving details. “We are also hiring a lot of young designers in the team to create a product line that appeals to customers looking for fashionable yet affordable shoes and accessories,” Bansal added.

Besides, changing the look and feel, Liberty is also strengthening its distribution in general trade and opening new exclusive outlets. “Currently, Liberty has 350 stores in metros and smaller cities, including the 80 company-owned ones. We will add between 50-100 stores every year to expand the retail reach,” Bansal said.

Each store entails an investment of Rs 25-50 lakh depending on size and location. The company that currently works with 40 distributors each, reaching out to 1,000 retail points, will add another 60 distributors by December. Liberty, that posted Rs 260.29 crore net sales in 2009-10 with net profit of 9.82 crore is aiming for above 20 per cent growth every year.

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The tasks involved in just trading alone can take up time for the store managers and assistants as they make sales, deal with refunds and take time with customers.  Once all this is done it just doesn’t leave time to think about things such as Point of Sale Merchandising, Shelving and Racking, General Retail Merchandising, Warehousing and more!

This is where a retail support company can help to provide a service that allows the store managers to get on with what they do best, which is managing the store, whilst having the peace of mind that the other operations in the store are being looked after by professionals.

Here are 5 services that you might consider outsourcing -

Merchandising - It’s important to understand that stores maximize their profits by planning the layout of the store, which helps create an efficient ‘flow’ for the customers.  Are you looking for inspiration on how to merchandise your products?  Speak to a consultant who will be able to help.

Shelving and Racking - Do you need to make your storage and/or display more efficient? By outsourcing your shelving and racking requirements you can let people with experience in the field deal with this.

Store Closures - Got a store that isn’t performing and it would be more cost efficient to close it down?  Store Closures are a way of maximizing profits if a particular store is struggling.  They can be very stressful and outsourcing to a company with experience in the field can be very useful!

Warehousing - If you have a small store with not much storage space you might want to consider outsourcing your warehousing services.  By sharing warehouse space your costs will be lower and you will see less of an impact on your profits.

Store Openings - Are you opening a new retail outlet and need assistance.  Store Openings can be stressful as you work towards your opening day deadline, and a missed deadline is a loss of profits!

These are just 5 areas of your retail operation that you could outsource, allowing you to concentrate on the day to day tasks of running your business.

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