Competition in the retail sector is hotting up and to keep pace with it, Spencer's Retail, a part of the Rs 11,300 crore RPG group opened the first of its new redesigned and rebranded Hyper stores at Inorbit mall in Mumbai on Friday.
"We wanted to upgrade the consumer experience and therefore this store with a completely new visual identity," Harsh Goenka, Chairman, RPG Enterprises said after unveiling the new brand and visual identity at the 54,000 square feet store.
The retailer plans to replicate the Spencer's Hyper format in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Vizag, Aurangabad, Durgapur, Lucknow and Jaipur.
The new brand identity would be taken to its four other retail formats—Spencer's Fresh, Spencer's Express, Spencer's Daily and Spencer's Super also. "In fact, we have already opened a record number of 40 stores across India in the past week," Goenka said.
"Today we have about 400 stores across India," he said. "We plan to take this number to 2,000 by the end of 2009 and 4,000 stores by 2011."
RPG Retail, which has Music World, RPG Cellucom and Spencer's as its subsidiaries, has plans to pump in Rs 1,000 crore into the retail business. "We plan to invest aggressively in this sector to give our customers a world-class retailing experience," Goenka said, adding that the money would be invested over the next three years and would be entirely funded through equity.
RPG Retail, which has Music World, RPG Cellucom and Spencer's as its subsidiaries, has plans to pump in Rs 1,000 crore into the retail business. "We plan to invest aggressively in this sector to give our customers a world-class retailing experience," Goenka said, adding that the money would be invested over the next three years and would be entirely funded through equity.
Speaking to
Hindustan Times
about the positioning of the refurbished Spencer's Hyper outlets, Jeetu Mehta, President, Spencer's retail said: "Our target customers for the hypermarket form are SEC A and B+ housewives and therefore we plan to position our stores as best in class for foods."
He was quick to reiterate that Spencer's Hyper would not be positioned as a discount store. "Our pricing would be competitive but we are not a discount retailer," Mehta said.
While the retailer plans to open more outlets, the older stores will also be refurbished to sport the new look, the design for which was initially done by UK-based Fitch and then by a Canadian company.