Reliance Digital Retail is soon to embrace a massive expansion plan by increasing its store count tremendously. The format has gained a lot of prominence with them making their way into every city and having access to the most newly fangled products.
Vijay Nair, Assistant Vice President of Reliance Retail, stated that they intend to increase the store count to a record of 500 by March 2014 from the present count of 101. He has also mentioned that they would emphasize on Tier 2 and Tier 3 formats for this expansion project. However, he has not revealed the budget amount allocated for the same. Besides increasing the number of stores, they may also work on having a warehouse at every state of the country, from the current count of 21.
The company has been lately endeavoring to strengthen its retail segment and this move stands as a testament to the same. It eyes a growth of five -six times in the next 3-4 years, to report a revenue of 40,000 to 50,000 crore. Other than increasing its footprint, it has also been mapping out other strategies to augment its influence like foraying into the online space by January end, pulling out new product portfolios like launching products like tablets. By entering the online space, the company will be able to easily grab the attention of the younger audience and accelerate its growth.
RIL’s colossal reserves come as rescue at such tough time, when every other retail businesses have been showing signs of relinquishing, from their activities.
When asked about the commercial viability of the store, Vijay Nair mentioned that their stores that have been operational for a year have already turned out to be profitable. He expects the new ones to break even in another year.
Within a few years of launch, the company has been tasting success with its formats being recognized and appreciated by the masses. Adhering to Reliance’s value for money format, the store has also been preferred for its huge range of products including the economical ones.
Reliance Digital has been experimenting with a number of formats, at present. The present format includes smaller stores known as Istores that span across an area of 1500 to 200 square feet onwards and larger stores than extend to an area of 8000 square feet.