16 December 2022, Mumbai

This winter V-Mart is seeing a good response for sweatshirts, pullovers and jackets. Once it gets colder, especially in the northern part of the country, the retailer expects more sales of heavy jackets, mufflers and caps.

Value fashion retailer V-Mart Retail’s revenue for the second quarter rose by 50 percent. Net loss narrowed to Rs 11 crores. The company opened 16 new stores in the quarter including two stores in the south. In all six new Unlimited stores were opened in South India this year and they have been delivering higher sales productivity as compared to the legacy Unlimited stores. The company has also successfully closed its transaction with A M Marketplaces for the acquisition of Limeroad and has begun the integration process. Going forward, Limeroad will become the primary omni e-commerce vehicle for V-Mart’s online presence.

Limeroad is an online fashion marketplace. This is expected to help strengthen V-Mart’s omni-channel strategy and leverage on synergies to deliver emerging fashion trends to digital-first shoppers.V-Mart will operate Limeroad as an independent business unit, retaining its tech start-up culture. Limeroad offers fresh unbranded styles and unique content to value shoppers.

V-Mart and Limeroad hope this agreement enables them to become India’s fastest-growing omni-channel value-fashion retail platform.

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13 December 2022, Mumbai

With business in malls now overtaking pre-pandemic levels, operators are renegotiating rents and asking for a higher share of revenues from retailers and brands.

They are also open to smaller lease tenures which give them the flexibility to change the tenant mix. The increase in revenue share has been depending upon the category and brands. Rents are moving northwards but the exact levels vary from brand to brand. When leases come up for renewal for existing retailers or even for new ones, malls have an option to make changes.

The changes have been made for varying periods of six months or a year. For instance, supermarkets are now paying a bigger share of 0.25 per cent because their margins are thinner. On the other hand, cinema theatres or department stores are paying one or two per cent more.Retailers are also paying bigger revenue shares in some cities like Delhi and Mumbai, where there is a shortage of quality space. Since business has been looking up post Covid, retailers are not averse to paying more.

While in some categories like fashion, beauty, and food and beverages, the revenue share for malls is going up, in others like electronics the revenue share is falling as margins in these businesses are shrinking.

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 21 December 2022, Mumbai

Indian retailers posted a 15 per cent growth in sales in November 2022 over pre-pandemic levels. So says Retailers’ Association of India.

This growth was led by segments such as footwear, sports goods and jewellery. However the impact of inflationary challenges on the discretionary segment was visible. Retailers in the eastern and western regions grew by 17 per cent compared to November 2019. In the northern and southern regions, sales were up 13 per cent each. With the wedding season in the offing there was an increase in purchases in jewellery, footwear, and garments. While the footwear segment grew by 29 per cent in November 2022 over pre-pandemic levels, sales of sports goods were up nearly 24 per cent.

Sales of sporting goods and footwear got a boost due to consumers’ purchasing merchandise for the FIFA World Cup to support their favourite teams as well as the marathon season.The wedding season helped jewellery sales grew 23 per cent over pre-pandemic levels in November 2022. Furniture and furnishing sales were up 18 per cent while that of the apparel and clothing segment was up 14 per cent. Food and grocery sales grew by 13 per cent in November over pre-pandemic levels. Consumer durables and electronics sales were up about four per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels due to the key festival season being in October in 2022.

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 16 December 2022, Mumbai

Ikea plans retail stores and luxury malls in Uttar Pradesh.

Based in Sweden, Ikea is known for its affordable and wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products and has over 458 stores across 62 markets of the world.

In India Ikea has stores in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, New Delhi and Gurgaon. Ikea’s sales in India went up by 77 per cent in fiscal 2022. Total income went up by 73 per cent. Total operating expenditure, excluding interest, depreciation and amortization, was up 45 per cent.

The company’s expansion plan and operations were impacted due to the global pandemic. However the home furnishing retailer not only managed its operations in an effective way but also extended its support to society through its various partners for helping needy people and for minimising the spread of the pandemic. The company also ensured the safety of its co-workers while managing its operations.

During fiscal year 2022, Ikea continued to work on its plans towards positioning, growth and profitability of the omni-channel business in India. Ikea sees India as an important market, has almost doubled sales in India over the last year and will continue to focus on reaching people with accessible, affordable, sustainable products and solutions that are relevant to life at home in India.

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Uniqlo has more than 12,000 products online and services 17,000 pincodes in India.

Just about everything that is launched in Japan finds its way to the Indian market. Ever since its inception in 1984, Uniqlo has always done casual wear, specifically, everyday essential clothing.The Japanese apparel brand opened its first store in India in 2019 in New Delhi. Now Uniqlo has nine stores in India (seven stores in Delhi NCR, one in Chandigarh, and one in Lucknow) with the largest one at 35,000 square feet in Delhi NCR.

Considering the brand started operations in India just four months before the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, the first three years were not profitable. The e-commerce platform was launched by July 2021. But after three years here, the brand is now making progress. While the brand does not yet have physical stores in the south, Bangalore is one of its top performing markets on the e-commerce channel. Uniqlo sources from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Japan and Bangladesh. India is an important market for the brand and the idea is to prosper and grow together not just with the customer but with society at large by creating employment opportunities. Uniqlo will expand its production in India.

19 December 2022, Mumbai 

Shoppers Stop has opened a store in Faridabad. This is the multi-brand fashion and beauty retailer’s eighteenth store in the Delhi National Capital Region.

The store measures 24,753 sqft and is designed to satisfy the growing demand for branded apparel and cosmetics by featuring over 500 Indian and international fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands. The store includes a personal shoppers’lounge, where visitors can receive personal assistance from a dedicated team of personal shoppers, and refreshments are also available to customers.

Men’swear, women’swear, and children’s wear feature alongside cosmetics, fragrances, and accessories. Shoppers Stop follows a hyperlocal customer outreach strategy by personalising the product offerings at stores according to customer preferences. It has made significant progress over the years in bringing convenience to customers by providing a tailored and service-backed shopping experience.

By increasing the brand’s presence and market share, the retailer hopes to further reinforce the high customer loyalty and brand recall it has in markets across the country. In all Shoppers Stop has a presence across more than 98 department stores in 49 cities. With each new store opening, Shoppers Stop strives to elevate the brand experience for consumers and has been on an expansion spree post the Covid pandemic and plans to open 12 to 15 stores every year.

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 15 December 2022, Mumbai

India’s e-retail market is growing by more than 25 per cent a year. This is being fueled by fashion, grocery and general merchandise that will account for up to two-thirds of e-retail by 2027.

It is also expected that the rising numbers of online shoppers in India, particularly from low-tier cities, is all set to make it Asia’s third largest economy.India’s transition toward the digital economy has made the country the second major digital adapter among digital economies globally. Though e-commerce is at a nascent three per cent to four per cent of India's total retail sector, it is playing a vital role in the direct to consumer revolution with digital-first brands doing well and the shopping experience becoming highly personalized.

The consumer journey is no longer linear with the rising number of online platforms and the multiplication of consumer touch points. Revenue, reputation and retention are becoming a challenge as only exceptional customer experience is going to make people feel, recommend and re-use the brand again.But over the last few years, there has been a steady rise in reviews that would affect the purchase decision by consumers, necessitating an intervention by the regulator on these reviews.

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Russia’s e-commerce platform Ozon is expanding to India.

The hope is that entrepreneurs in India take advantage of the platform to start selling their products in Russia. Russian consumers demand various products from India, including health and beauty products, interior decoration, jewellery and clothing. Ozon has opened in China and already has 10,000 Chinese sellers offering goods to Russian customers on its marketplace, with China accounting for 95 per cent of sales through its cross-border sales unit.

Chinese products are in high demand in Russia. The most popular orders from China are usually electronics - smartphones, laptops and computer parts - as well as small appliances and clothing. E-commerce is booming worldwide but Russia is showing particularly dynamic growth in this sector. Online shopping is overtaking traditional retail in terms of growth and the number of online orders in Russia doubled last year, while the size of the e-commerce market grew 52 per cent in rouble terms. By 2024 the Russian e-commerce is expected to more than double its current value. With a population of more than 145 million people, and an online shopping audience of more than 70 million, Russia currently ranks 12th in the world by e-commerce sales.

 17 December 2022, Mumbai

The deadline to bid for Future Retail may be extended by a month.

Several interested buyers for the debt-ridden company have sought more due-diligence time and clarity on the quantum of verified creditor liabilities. The verification process for the amounts claimed by various Future Retail creditors is not yet complete.So a request was made to the resolution professional to extend the timeline. The original deadline for submission of final bids was December 15.

A court-appointed resolution professional selected 13 entities as potential bidders for Future Retail on November 20 after they submitted expressions of interest (EoIs), with none of the interested parties drawing objections from any quarter.This would be the second extension in the sale process. In October, the resolution professional had extended the last date for prospective buyers to submit expressions of interest by nearly two weeks due to a somewhat circumspect bidding interest back then.

The selected potential bidders include Reliance Retail Ventures, April Moon Retail (a joint venture between Adani Group and Flemingo Group), WH Smith Travel and Dharampal Satyapal.

Future Retail has 302 stores (30 large-format and 272 small-format outlets), but footfalls have dropped drastically at the outlets being operated due to poor inventory and warehousing space. Some of the outlets have also been shut down.

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 14 December 2022, Mumbai

Amid a significant fall in the number of peak winter days, retailers of winter apparel have cut down on inventory stocks.

Delay in the onset of winters, shorter duration of cold temperatures, and flattening seasonality are forcing makers of seasonality-centric product categories to rework their strategies. Delayed winter has led to a slow offtake of sales of woolen apparel and small appliances like heaters and geysers across the entire northern India belt.

Since winters are not so severe, brands are making more of lighter pre-winter apparel, since those are safer bets, rather than be stuck with heavy winter inventories. Winter is an important period in the fashion life cycle, but the cycle is relatively short in India, for about two months only, and dominated by the northern part of the country.

Winter wear comprises basic sweaters, hoodies, sweat shirts, jackets, shawls, cardigans and trousers. This year the industry is staring at losses due to a significant drop in the offtake of winter wear orders. The economic uncertainty and high inflation are considered to be main reasons keeping customers away from anything which is priced a little higher. Over the last few years, people have built their capacity, but utilisation is not optimum because of the slowdown in demand. Brands catering to the middle class have been hit.

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 09 December 2022, Mumbai

Lulu’s plans 12 malls across India over the next three years. These would be in Calicut, Tirur, Perinthalmanna, Kottayam, Palakkad, Noida, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.

The group at present has five operational malls in India. These are in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Bangalore and Thrissur. The first Lulu mall in India was set up in Kochi. It has the biggest hypermarket in the nation, a 2500-seater food court, six cafes, and 11 restaurants. Additionally, it features a nine-screen gold class multiplex, a trampoline park, a bowling alley, amusement rides, and South India’s largest ice skating rink.

The mall in Bangalore is spread across five storeys featuring 137 stores and 17 kiosks. The mall in Thiruvananthapuram has over 300 international and national brands and 12 anchor stores. The mall in Lucknow features a 1,600-seater food court serving over 15 fine dining options. The mall in Thrissur has a unique entertainment zone offering several video games, carousel rides, bump-a-car, soft play area and other fun-filled rides for children.

Lulu’s, a division of the Lulu Group, has been delivering outstanding retail, dining, and entertainment spaces since its door opened and although primarily based in the UAE the group still enjoys massive popularity in India. The group has so far developed shopping malls, hypermarkets, food processing centers, and other related businesses in the country.

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