"Customers expect to save at hypermarkets"

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Gold the most preferred investment

: Basket in food, Maxit in sports and fitness, Lauren Christopher and Tosca in home, City in fashion etc. In terms of the contribution to merchandise mix, it varies from category to category. It is 100% in fashion, 80% in sports & fitness, 10% in electronics.

Despite the focus on these brands, we haven’t ignored the established names as such. For instance, products from Waitrose, an international supermarket chain in the UK and Raleigh, the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer, are available at HyperCity. This gives us a distinctive edge and helps us differentiate our proposition from others.

Which categories do well for private labels? Similarly, which are the categories where national brands outdo the others?

Private labels work best in categories, which are not very brand sensitive or where there is lack of choice of brands. For example, home, furniture, sports, fitness etc. These are categories, which are predominantly non-branded, that is, very few national brands exist there.

In contrast, categories such as food, personal care and electronics have prominent national brands. They tend to outshine private labels because they are backed by high decibel marketing spends. Retailers like us, however, are competing with national brands in these categories too. Such as food for instance where we offer better products at very competitive rates. We’ve identified need gaps in the segment where we think customers are under-served.

A case in point is freshly-cut fruits and vegetables that are ready to cook and serve. Our brand Fresh Basket caters to that. We also provide clean and hygienically packed meat and fish. We have the finest assortment of international cheese.

All of this makes a world of a difference to consumers, who buy our products.

Can you tell me the margins you earn on private labels?

I can’t get into specifics. But I won’t deny the fact that private labels provide great value to customers as they do not have the huge marketing spends of national brands and therefore can be retailed cheaper to the latter providing better profitability to retailers.

What is your advertising budget? Will you stick to local media like you are currently or introduce a national campaign since you have a catalogue shopping format now?