Trent Ltd, the retail arm of Tata Group, is on an expansion mode. To cash in on the growing demand for organised retail from major metros as well as smaller cities and towns, the company is planning to set up 25 new ?Star Bazaar? hypermarkets in metros and expand the presence of ?Westside? stores from 27 to 60 stores in Tier II and Tier III cities over the next three years.
Neeti Chopra, head-marketing, Trent Ltd told FE, ?We will initially set up our hypermarkets in all major metros including five in Mumbai followed by one each in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai apart from tier II and II cities. We are looking at taking our hypermarket brand to cities like, Pune, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Cochin, Nagpur, Nasik, Hyderabad, amongst others, where Westside has already made a mark. We are currently in talks with Akruti Nirman to set up all the formats including Westside, Star Bazaar, etc, at its upcoming malls.?
Besides, Trent is also setting up around 10-11 smaller formats of Westside stores which will be called as ?Westside Woman?, ?Westside Girl?, etc and spread across 5,000-8,000 sq ft. Currently, Westside departmental stores are spread across 15,000 to 30,000 sq ft. According to Chopra, ?All our smaller Westside stores will be company-owned.?
Landmark ?a books and music retail chain in India, in which Trent has acquired 76% stake? is also planning to expand Landmark bookshops from 14 to 29 stores in India with an area of 35,000 sq ft each. Himanshu Chakravarty, COO, Landmark, said, ?We also plan to set up 12 to 15 smaller format of Landmark book shops like hotel bookshops with an area of 300 sq ft in India.? Landmark will be present in malls with whom Trent has a tie up .