Pantaloon Retail to expand in the South

12 March 2007

Chennai: Retail major Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited has drawn up plans to expand its Southern operations by increasing the number of apparel outlets (Pantaloon Fresh Fashion) to 25 in a period of two years.

"About 10 stores will be in Tamil Nadu. The remaining will be spread out between Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala," said Rohit Malhotra, head, South Zone. Presently the company has six stores in the South, with the last having been inaugurated on 9 March, 2007.

Broadly the Rs2,018-crore turnover Pantaloon Retail has two store formats viz Lifestyle and Value Retail Space. Each one of them has two sub formats — Pantaloon Fresh Fashion and Central Mall under Lifestyle and Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Fashion Station under Value Retail Space format.

At the national level there are 25 Pantaloon Fresh Fashion, 4 Central Mall, 45 Big Bazaar 5 Fashion Stations and 67 Food Bazaar outlets. According to Malhotra, the company plans to have one Central Mall in all the state capitals. One Central Mall is coming up in South Mumbai.

Inaugurating the sixth store in South India in Chennai, Malhotra said, "Each Pantaloon Fresh Fashion outlet would involve an outlay of Rs2.5 crore. We expect a turnover of Rs10 crore in the first year of operations from our new Chennai store."

Interestingly the stores under this format stock only private label apparel. Speaking of the sales mix he said, "60 per cent is men's wear, 30 per cent women's wear and 10 per cent kid's wear. Traditionally Pantaloon outlets are associated with men's wear and that impression is fast changing."