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Mumbai, May 22 : Westside, Tata’s leading chain of stores, is planning to adopt the franchisee route to expand its presence in tier-II and tier-III cities. Through this model, 25-30 franchisee-operated stores of across 8,000-12,000 sqft and with an initial investment of Rs 1.2 crore, per store would be set up in the next five years. With this move, it plans to reach out to consumers across 37 cities. For the purpose, Westside has identified cities such as Allahabad, Patna, Guwahati, Dehradun, Madurai, Kolhapur, Jammu, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kochi, Pondichery, Trivandrum and Salem. Currently, 30 Westside stores are spread across 19 cities. As for the rationale behind the move, Neeti Chopra, head-marketing, Trent Ltd explained, “There is a huge business potential in tier-II and tier-III cities as people are willing to spend. Hence, we will be offering fashionable apparels to consumers in these cities at affordable prices. As the current economic boom in India spread to tier-II and tier-III cities and towns, a market presence in these cities is key to Westside growth and profitability.”
Westside started with the franchisee model in 2007 in Mysore on an experimental basis. Sridhar Krishnamurthy, who was a franchisee of Honda Motors and Tata Indicom, was appointed the first Westside franchisee. According to Chopra, “The store has done well and exceeded its targeted sales by 50% in its first year of operations.” While Westside will not be running franchisee stores, the company would be investing in them. This would be in terms of training the franchisees, helping the franchisees in recruiting staff, giving marketing and promotion support to boost sales, replenishing stock, IT and merchandise support and project assistance.
However, in the metroes, Westside will not adopt the franchisee model. “This is because we intend to dominate our retail presence in metroes as they contribute a significant Rs 60 crore in terms of revenues and this will not change. Of the 60-70 stores being planned in the next five years, 25-30 stores would be franchisee operated. For instance, we have recently signed 23 properties for setting up Star Bazaar hypermarkets, Chopra added.
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