Pantaloon Retail to take Central to smaller cities

To open five premium format stores this year

MUMBAI: Pantaloon Retail will increase its premium format ‘Central’ malls from seven to 12 by the end of this calendar year.

The new malls would come up at Mumbai, Vashi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Nashik, indicating that the company is willing to try out the format even in tier one and tier two cities.

After taking it slow since the first Central opened in Bangalore in 2004 (especially in comparison to the way the number of Big Bazaar outlets is rising), the company is lining up more locations aggressively, with designs and plans already laid out for the ones that will open 2011-12.

Rakesh Biyani, chief executive officer, retail, Future Group, said, “We want to establish iconic structures and destinations before we expand. With five more openings this year itself, we expect to touch Rs 1400-crore revenues by the year ending June 2009. This format has worked extremely well for us”.

Central malls are big-format complexes sprawled across 80,000 to one lakh square feet of area, housing more than 500 domestic as well as international brands. The investment into each mall is around Rs 2,500 per square feet.

The business model for Central is different since it works on revenue sharing between Pantaloon and the brands rather than the usual trading concept.

Considering that the brand partners know their products much better than anyone else and so can offer the best product mix and collection for the customers, Central lets brands themselves manage their space. Elaborating on the benefits of such a model, Biyani said, “This brings in better productivity in terms of sales per square foot for us. A big retail space ensures that we are able to service more customers. A better collection from the brands’ side gets more conversions, too.”

Supporting this business are the supermarkets, food courts and even night clubs within the same mall to give an experience of ‘celebration’, as the company officials put it.

In the upcoming Centrals, multiplexes in partnership with either Inox or PVR will also be present.

All this helps the mall to break even much faster than any other format.

s_tanvi@dnaindia.net