The Hindu Business Line : Future Group to launch Big Bazaar Clubs

After Bharti-Wal-Mart and Metro Cash & Carry, it's now Big Bazaar, the hypermarket chain of the Future Group, which is all set to foray into the wholesale/cash and carry retail format, with the launch of its first Big Bazaar Club.

"We will launch our first wholesale/cash and carry retail format outlet Big Bazaar Club in Ahmedabad shortly," said Mr Rajan Malhotra, Head, Big Bazaar Category, Future Group. The 13,000-sq-ft wholesale outlets will be attached to the Big Bazaar hypermarket outlets across the country, he added.

Drawing comparisons with the cash and carry formats that Metro and Bharti follow, Mr Malhotra said, "Through our Big Bazaar Clubs, we will look at targeting not only institutions such as hotels and restaurants, and small retailers, but also, large families that do bulk purchasing. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to open the first outlet at Ahmedabad, as Gujarat still has large joint families."

Mr Malhotra also said that unlike the hypermarket outlets that offer customers a choice of 30,000-40,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), the Big Bazaar Club outlets would offer around 600-800 SKUs, for which brands have already been shortlisted.

Talking about the Big Bazaar hypermarket outlets, Mr Malhotra said, "Currently, there are 39 Big Bazaar hypermarket outlets across the country. While we plan to open 11 more stores within the next two months, plans are afoot to set up a total of 100 outlets by December 2007."

Reacting to Bharti-Wal-Mart's entry into the retail category, Mr Malhotra said that though definite plans had been etched out for the Group a year ago, the telecom giant's entry into the retail forum had expedited the implementation process.

Big Bazaar plans to add a total of 2.5-million sq ft retail space with an investment of Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 crore by June 2007. While the Future Group expects to clock a turnover of around Rs 4,500 crore, Big Bazaar plans to clock around Rs 2,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal.