The Hindu Business Line : Piramyd to strengthen its retail presence

PIRAMYD Retail on Friday said it is significantly adding to its retail presence and has identified Pune and Mumbai as the destinations, which will fuel growth for its fledgling supermarket retail brand TruMart.

The company has identified over a fifty clusters in both these cities where it will roll out the TruMart brand and its smaller sibling, the TruMart Daily, Mr Nandan Piramal, Vice-Chairman, Piramyd Retail, said here on Friday.

"We will grow through the hub and spoke model and are currently in the process of identifying properties in the clusters we have short-listed for our operations," he said. "By the end of the current fiscal we will go from the level of 11 TruMarts in Pune and Mumbai to 24," Mr Piramal said.

Launches retail space in Pune: The company has, meanwhile, significantly increased its presence in the Pune market by launching 72,000 sq ft of retail space on Friday. The company launched a 65,000-sq ft Piramyd Megastore along with its TruMart brand at the high street International Convention Center (ICC) and followed this up with a 7,000-sq ft standalone TruMart, its grocery brand in the industrial town of Pimpri.

By March this year, it will also replace its first outlet in Pune with a 65,000-sq ft oulet in a new mall coming up in the city's main shopping promenade.

"The retail industry has changed dramatically in India in the last couple of years and we will keep pace by adding to not just the retail space for customers but also the experience that they get from our brand," Mr Piramal said.

Eyes other cities: The company, which started a 29,000-sq ft mini retail mall in Pune that housed both Piramyd and a grocery store a couple of years ago, is now rolling out the model across destinations in the North and the West, where it will tap tier-2 and tier-3 locations.

"We are also looking at taking Piramyd Megastores to cities like Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai in the next couple of years, once we establish ourselves in the West and North," Mr Piramal said.

Consolidating in-house labels: With competition in the retail arena now heating up, Piramyd Retail is also in the process of consolidating its in-house labels, which it says, will account for a significant portion of its profits in the coming years.

"The in-house labels account for 8-11 per cent of our sales currently but in the next two years we see that going up to twenty per cent," Mr Piramal said adding that the company also plans to bring in footfalls into its malls with a selection of labels from Spain and Italy, which are different from the ones found in other malls.

The company, which recently went public to raise funds for its expansion, has chalked out aggressive growth plans. Over the next five years, it plans to have 1.75 million sq ft of retail space in operations and 150 stores across the country.