“ Wal-Mart is very satisfied with its results in India. I was informed by the Wal-Mart CEO that they are looking at opening more stores. He gave me a figure of 40 more stores across the country in the immediate future.”
- Minister Anand Sharma (Indian Commerce and Industry )
“National brands retail at a mark up of around three times, which is channelised into branding. We pass this on to the customer while retaining net margins of 8-10% ”
- Kailash Gupta (MD of Ahmedabad-based Liverpool Retail India.)
“ We’ve continued to grow even during challenging market conditions. During the third quarter, we opened 21 new Bata Shoe Stores and renovated four existing Bata Stores. These new stores continue to contribute to our objective of making Bata the most preferred brand for consumers in the footwear retail market in India. We have now entered into the 'shop in shop' retail format to give our customers greater accessibility to our wide range of footwear which will be available in prominent department stores. ”
- Marcelo Villagran ( Bata India MD & CEO)
“ Walmart continues to stay on the leading edge of sustainable building practices…Our ongoing commitment to operate in a more energy efficient manner, while working to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions has resulted in this latest pilot of energy efficient stores.”
- James McClendon (Director of New Format Development, Wal-Mart-USA)
“ The trends indicate that consumers are spending more on necessities than lifestyle. There is definitely an upswing, but there is no euphoria.”
- BS Nagesh (Vice-Chairman, Shoppers Stop)
“ Our retail venture is our next phase of building relationship with our customers and our channel partners. We plan to open 60 stores by 2011 and for this we have earmarked an investment of Rs.100 crore.”
- Ramesh A Vaswani (Executive Vice Chairman, Intex Technologies)
“ Introducing Wal-Mart private labels in our stores helps cut down on the learning curve.”
- Vinod Sawhny (Bharti Retail President and COO)
“ Our focus is clearly on single-store business model. Profitability from each store should be 8-10% of its sales. ”
- Thomas Varghese (CEO, Aditya Birla Retail)
“ The growth in organised retail is a sure-shot platform for us to hawk a range of products in India. Ford’s global licensing programme has witnessed a major success in the global markets and we want to replicate it in India. Our range of products will be out in the market by the last quarter of the current fiscal.”
- Mark W. Bentley (Ford Global Brand Licensing Manager)
“ My corporate identity and the brand identity have to go hand in hand…we are aligning the corporate identity with that of the brand.”
- Anil Lepps (Chief Executive, Store One)
“We will open 60 stores every year across the country.”
- Marcello Villagran (MD, Bata India)
“ China is a big opportunity for us. We are just getting started in India, where there's great opportunity for us.”
- Robson Walton (Walmart chairman
)
“ I don't see any significant signs of an immediate change. The only part of the world where they are still dancing the samba is Latin America.”
- Lars Olofsson (Carrefour CEO)
“ We are rationalising our pricing strategy and extending the brand offerings to become more affordable to a wider set of people. We want to have a larger share of people’s wardrobe. We are taking a market-centric approach which means having the right product at the right pricing.”
- Manjula Tiwari (Chief Operating Officer, Esprit India )
“ We are still generating sales worth Rs 100 crore every month. Footfalls have just about started falling in place but the crisis-like swine flu is again impacting it ”
- Ambeek Khemka (Group Vice-President, Vishal Retail)
“ India has a long way to go to make luxury retail sustainable and so we will focus on premium brands now.”
- Vijay Murjani (Managing Director, Brand Marketing India Pvt. Ltd.”
“ We are constrained by the number of outlets we have in India. The potential is huge. Currently, we have 60 outlets and plan to grow this number to 150”
- Claude Jauni (Regional Sales Manager (Asia Pacific), Longines )
“ It’s an incredible time to expand. The topline has grown 20% over the last year and the number of consumers has grown 10%.”
- Niren Chaudhary (RCEO, Uum! Restaurants India)
“We have recast our business model and we want to get into smaller formats with smaller footprints and that’s all work-in-progress… Work-in-progress always looks dirtier than what it was originally.”
- Soumitra Ghatak (Chief Executive, Sankalp Retail Value Stores)
“ Spencer’s is running in loss and will take another 12-18 months to become profitable…We have reviewed the business model and seem to have identified the correct strategies in terms of format and other details. We recently opened three stores in Andhra Pradesh and one in Tamil Nadu all. All the stores became profitable within two months of the launch.”
- Sanjiv Goenka (Vice Chairman, CESC)
“ While an exclusive outlet on a week-day gives a footfall of 20-30 people a day (70-80 on weekends), departmental stores have a footfall of 5,000 on a normal day and 7,000 in the weekend. Investing in departmental stores makes more business sense; this is a safer platform today.”
- J. Suresh (Arvind Brands)
“ Today the chance of hyper markets becoming profitable is higher.”
- Thomas Varghese (MD, Aditya Birla Retail)
“ One of the mistakes which exporters committed was to think that domestic retail is only an extension of the export business. But retail is a standalone business and has its characteristics…Organized retail in India hasn't progressed as much as we expected.”
- Sudhir Dhingra (CMD, Orient Craft)
“ We have never launched these many stores (25) in one year alone. The market is good right now with lower rentals, overheads, costs and more efficient supply chains…We are getting future-ready by turning ourselves into a complete lifestyle brand. This means we will be retailing not just formal wear but also introduce denims, club wear, accessories and innerwear at our outlets.”
- Shitalkumar Mehta COO – Van Heusen (Madura Garments)
“ Response generated at the store-level, over the past few months, suggests that the consumer is downtrading across the apparel spectrum. From premium brands to the mid-priced segment, consumers are shifting to hypermarket offerings.”
- Aloke Malik (President of Peter England Fashion and Retail )
“Premji Invest feels that the liabilities of every board member (of Subhiksha) be fixed for the collapse of the retail chain. No member, either ICICI venture nominee or independent directors, can actually plead innocence, as they were in the control of the company before it collapsed. ”
Zash Investments official
“ The recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi laid down in Parliament few days back for imposing blanket ban on MNCs and big corporate houses in the retail trade should be adopted by the Government as it is a unanimous document of the Committee comprising members of all political parties.”
- Praveen Khandelwal (Secretary-General, CAIT)
“ …supply chains have to be regional in India. We have not reached a point where we can have national supply chains.”
- Raj Jain (Wal-Mart India President)
“ We are not excluding non-vegetarians, we are including all those vegetarians who would not come to our outlet because we served non-vegetarian food. Besides, we believe in going with the sentiments of the place (Ahmedabad) and our dip stick survey showed that this is what people wanted.”
- Sanjay Countinho (Chief Operating Officer. Barista Lavazza)
“ I envision the day that you look at a piece of apparel, you flip a tag over, and learn about how sustainable it really is.”
- John Fleming (Wal-Mart Chief Merchandising Officer)
“ …supply chains have to be regional in India. We have not reached a point where we can have national supply chains.”
- Raj Jain (Wal-Mart India President)
“ As far as Wal-Mart is concerned, it is a consumer brand. It is not a wholesale brand, so put it on a wholesale cash and carry facility would not have been appropriate.”
- Raj Jain (Wal-Mart India President)
“ …people thought this is a sure –shot 100m dash…the truth about retailing is that it’s a marathon and it takes several hours and laps to complete it, and it really doesn’t matter who wins the first lap.”
- Raj Jain (Wal-Mart India President)
“The world is changing, in India the youth is coming in, they want better stores if you go and look at our store here today, which we have made a model 'Mera Kirana' you look at the store, it tells you a story. You will see with this cash and carry coming in, with the best price coming in, you will see once the people come in and start linking with us, they will see the change.”
- Rajan Bharti Mittal ( Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises)
“A blanket ban should be imposed on domestic corporate heavyweights and foreign retailers from entering into retail trade in grocery, fruits and vegetables.”
(Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce set up to look into the issue of FDI)
“At this stage, we don’t see that the time has come for any comprehensive review...it is too early in the day...we will see how the new policy is working.”
- Anand Sharma (Industry and Commerce Minister on liberalizing FDI in retail)
“Broadly, value retail segment has regained an average sales growth of around 7-8% in the last two months while lifestyle formats are growing at around 0-4%”
- Rahul Mehta (president of Clothing and Manufacturing Association of India)
“ While others are bleeding hundreds of crores, our bleed is over because we have shut down all (38 out of 42) unprofitable stores. ”
- Anil Lepps (Chief Executive, Indiabulls Retail)
“ In today’s challenging market, Bata has performed remarkably. Our strategy of opening large format stores has been successful and we continue to invest in expanding our retail business. ”
- Marcelo Villagran (Managing Director of Bata India)
“ In a tough economic environment over the last quarter, the company saw demand evaporate in all segments of real estate business. ”
(A DLF statement said)
“ Existing customers are the most recession-proof part of business. It’s easier to show value to them and enhance relationships. ”
- Mr Ashish Dikshit (President - Lifestyle and Retail, Madura Garments)
“ With the margins that the FMCG companies offer, no one can survive. Even global retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour and others are successful because of their strong focus on private labels. No retailer can survive on rentals and low margins. ”
- Mr Thomas Varghese (CEO, Aditya Birla Retail)
“ We all have made mistakes, but this re-launch is meant to get things right. Now, we will open stores only when we have everything right, be it the location of the store, the product mix or the loyalty programmes. ”
- Thomas Varghese (CEO, Aditya Birla Retail)
“Rentals have come down 25-30%, already. But that’s not the only factor. Fixing back-end is more important. ”
- Rajan Bharti Mittal (Vice Chairman & MD, Bharti Enterprises)
“The Indian market in the long-term is very promising. We hope to break even in two years’ time. ”
- Mr. K Venkatraman (MD, Mahindra Retail)
“The economic slowdown has definitely impacted footfalls in food joints as families have cut down on eating out.”
- Poonam Bijlani (BJN Group Director)
“It’s taken us some 12-14 months to implement SAP. The investment on such ERP implementation has been around Rs 20-25cr.”
-Sumantra Banerjee (RPG Retail president and CEO)
“In properties signed before end 2006, we are seeking the co-operation of the property owners for rent waivers and or extension of time to pay rents and where property owners have difficulty in acceding to our requests we are mutually agreeing the way forward.”
- Mr. R Subramaniam (MD Subhiksha)
“The response (to sales promotions) has been fantastic. Even conversion rates have gone up from 25% to 28%.”
- Mr. B S Nagesh (MD Shoppers Stop)
“It has turned out to be a buyers’ market in real estate, with developers desperate to lease their malls. Retailers essentially do not want to bear all the upfront capital cost related to fixtures and are asking developers to partially bear them.”
- Rajeev Bairathi (Director, DTZ India)
“Rentals have not come down in operational malls but in upcoming ones retailers are negotiating for revenue sharing so that the builder is also responsible for driving footfalls.”
(a spokesperson at Jones Lang LaSalle)
“We have not lowered our rentals and are reviewing deals on a case-to-case basis. In some cases, we have suspended minimum guarantee.”
- Raj Singh Gehlot (Ambience’s CMD)
“We do not plan to shut down any store. Instead, if we feel there is not enough demand at a particular store we would be re-locating it… Speciality retail is still growing compared to other formats in retailing.”
- Mr K.S. Raman (CEO and customer care associate of Shoppers Stop)
“The coming four quarters will be quite challenging for retailers and some recovery can only be seen in the next festive season.”
- B S Nagesh (CEO and customer care associate of Shoppers Stop)
“Consumers are currently sitting on the fence and the challenge for retailers will be to offer the right baits to get them back to stores. Retailers have to focus on growing profits through sales growth and not mere cost-cutting strategies There will be a sharp cut in overall sales growth this year, but a marked improvement in bottomlines with players focusing on efficiencies,”
- Kishore Biyani (CEO of Future Group)
“Apart from the fact that consumers are postponing purchases, the drop in growth is also due to corrective measures by retailers which focused more on expansion rather than driving consumption,”
- Gibson Vedhamani (president of the Retailers Association of India.)
“India is a market catering to an emerging fashion that is recession-proof. The new mantra for business is to make money by returning to the basics and inducing consumer buying patterns. ”
- Kishore Biyani (Chairman, Future Group)
“In every recession of the past 90 years…the businesses who increase their advertising spend are the ones who survive the tough times and thrive afterwards. ”
(Financial Times and Harvard Business Review)
“True retail spending has slowed down in India, but still it is not so much affected as in the West, considering the fact that India’s growth story is largely intact. The current rental correction provides the best opportunity for retailers to keep their operating costs under tight control. ”
- Arvind Singhal (Chairman Retail Consultancy Technopak Advisors)
“It’s going to be tough times and we will be very cautious. But our initial plan hasn’t changed. The slowdown also represents an opportunity for retailers to do things differently. And India still remains an attractive destination compared to a recession-hit developed world ”
- Timmy Sarna (DLF Brands vice-chairman)
“I personally do not see the meltdown as a dampener this year. At Viveks, we are hopeful of doing the same business as last year if not marginally better ”
- Mr B.A. Kothandarama Setty (Chairman of the durables retail major Viveks)
“These are difficult times and it has been a challenging task to give shape to our ambitious retail plans in particular Despite all these difficulties, business has grown in the last year as we have been able to counter some of the key issues by reacting to them immediately through our product innovations, identifying new markets, strengthening logistics and backend support, ”
- Mr Lalit Kishore (Sport Lifestyle Managing Director)
“Typically, closure is a call on stores that one would take after a 9-18 month watch cycle on performance. Given the possibility of reduced rents, we do not see store closure as a necessity. However, some relocations — may be 5 to 10 per cent — may be on the anvil. ”
- Mr Mohit Khattar (President - Marketing, Subhiksha)
“ Upmarket stores such as Spencer's, which are not price-driven as much as others, will not be impacted by inflation and the global meltdown.”
(Spencer spokesperson)
“We see good business opportunity in smaller cities. We have large assortment of products such as fabrics, readymade garments to cater to the demand of the population there.”
- Aniruddha Deshmukh (Raymond Ltd, President - Retail)
“We operate in a new world order, wherein collaboration with stakeholders is key to profitable business…Ideally, we should look at collaboration (with rivals) on common processes that provide no competitive advantage. This alone would enable shaving off 5-8 per cent of costs.”
- Kishore Biyani (Future Group MD)
“The next three-four quarters are not going to be the best of quarters and India cannot isolate itself from what is happening in the world. But there is no change in our investment and expansion plans.”
- B S Nagesh (Shoppers Stop MD)
“Though the overall retail market has grown by about 2% in the quarter ended Sept, the growth is still far less than anticipated. Companies that had earlier chalked out massive expansion are facing a bumpy ride. The middle market has taken a hit in the wake of a tightening of the credit situation and rentals. However, the luxury retail market so far has not shown any recessionary trend.”
- Asitava Sen (Director, Retail Consulting, The Nielsen Company)
“We have reduced our credit limit by 25% to our dealers and in order to increase our liquidity we are optimising inventory through weekly bulk dispatch than monthly.”
- Sanjeev K Bakshi (Godrej Appliances)
“The consumer confidence is lowest in last eight years. Unlike the real slowdown in 2000, India is witnessing a slowdown only in growth which is at 7-8%. The stock market crash does not have a direct bearing on us since only 3% of our population constitutes serious investors in the market. This means consumers haven’t lost money; they are only apprehensive and therefore sentiments are low.”
- Arvind Singhal (Chairman, Technopak)
“We have witnessed a 15% decrease in footfalls, especially on weekends… There are lesser people coming into the mall as compared to previous years during this time of the year.”
- Sonia Kathuria (Asst VP, TDI Mall, Delhi)
“We cater to premium end of the market, which is so far not much affected.”
-Arjun Sharma (MD, Select City Walk, Delhi)
“The panic in the stock market and credit market coupled with reports of job cuts has pushed consumers into saving mode.”
- Ambeek Khemka (Group Pres., Vishal Retail)
“Today, there are too many suiting and shirting players and there are already big companies such as Raymond in this segment. Our main focus will continue to be on the bed and bath segment.”
- Arun Bhawsingka (VP-Domestic, Bombay Dyeing)
“We are at a phase where we understand Indian consumers and their needs. We have our presence in so many Indian cities and we don't think that our competitors will manage to expand their business in a short period of time to reach our levels… We do our homework before launching a store. We know where our market lies. Meticulous planning and a scientific approach is the reason for our 100 percent growth.”
- Shailesh Chaturvedi (CEO-Tommy Hilfiger)
“We are still learning and it will be an interesting challenge to deal with new consumers, farmers and a new territory”
- Kishore Biyani (CEO, Future Group)…speaking on the recent acquisition of Aadhar
“The margin contribution from apparel is much more than food and grocery. The decision to focus on fashion will help us increase our margins by 4-5% ”
- Amit Kumar (Chief, Fashion@Big Bazaar)
“We have opened store after store and are in the process of opening many more - 100 ... 500 ... 1000 ... 5000 and may be many more. Let us pause for a while for a reality check ... Are our customers happy? Are our employees happy? Are our vendors happy? Are our stakeholders happy? Are we happy? …. The answer for all these questions ought to be 'YES' but in reality it is 'NO' for some. Where we have gone wrong? ”
- BS Nagesh (MD, Shoppers Stop)
“Yes, it is true that 15 managers have been asked to leave but that is because they were non-performers. One should appreciate that we had taken over a loss making business and we are trying to turn it around”
- Gagan Banga (CEO, India Bulls)
“Yes, there have been some issues in the retail industry. But we, as an organisation, are trying to shift employees from one department to another rather than laying them off. Luckily for us, our attrition rate has come down to 1%, which is phenomenal,”
- Kishore Biyani (CEO, Future Group)
“Large format is currently driving modern retail in India. It promises to be a superior shopping experience for the current day discerning shopper who values time and money and also looks out for choice before making a purchase decision,”
- Sanjiv Goenka (Vice Chairman, RPG Group)
“We are doing a legitimate business, and there are so many others doing the same business. So why should people try to stop Reliance
alone from entering Bengal. I appreciate there's some anxiety, but such things happen all over the world. We'll have to address it,...”
