Godrej Gropu mulls boutique retail stores

The Godrej Group will shortly launch specialty boutique retail stores in four product categories - home appliances, home furniture, office furniture and non-apparel lifestyle products. The group’s flagship company, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co, is finalising rollout plans which will crystallise in 2007-08. The Godrej group intends to set up 20-odd specialty stores by calendar 2010 with a major thrust on the top eight markets - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. While Godrej & Boyce operates a chain of 47 multi-product stores branded ‘Godrej Lifespace’, the group is working on a separate brand identity for specialty stores. Godrej & Boyce’s retail division business head and vice president Shyam Motwani told ET: “We will launch six of these boutique stores in 2007-08. Typically, each specialty store will be spread over 1000-1500 square feet (sq ft) in size. They will be present on both high-street and malls.” With the exception of the lifestyle specialty stores, all other formats will sell only Godrej branded products. “The lifestyle stores will mainly sell home decor merchandise like furnishing, home accessories and other decorative items. While these will be multi-brand outlets, we might launch some of the products under the Godrej brand as well,” said Mr Motwani. The present ‘Godrej Lifespace’ outlets operate in the home and office improvement space that involves the home & office furniture, home appliances and security suite of products. Such multi-product stores are spread over 3500 sq ft and are present only in high-street locations. The group has also lined up an investment of Rs 90-crore to increase its total retail space from the present 1.4 lakh sq ft to 5 lakh sq ft by 2010. “This includes both the specialty stores and ‘Godrej Lifespace’ chain. We intend to increase the number of retail stores under both the formats to 200 by 2010,” said Mr Motwani. With the proposed expansion plan on ground, the retail division is expected to generate Rs 450 crore revenue by March 2010 for Godrej & Boyce from present Rs 100 crore. The retail business is experiencing an annual growth of nearly 55%.

Courtesy: EconomicTimes
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