Future Group is looking to increase the penetration of its smaller format retail stores in tier II and III cities in a bid to source about 65 per cent of total sales from its private labels in the next five years, a top company official said.

“Big Bazaar is our flagship store with highest penetration, but for smaller towns the company is looking at opening smaller format retail stores,” C P Toshniwal, chief financial officer of Future Retail, told PTI here.

He added that Future Retail will open more Easyday stores across the country and also increase the number of Heritage and Nilgiri stores in the south. Presently, Big Bazaar, including Food Bazaar has about 287 stores across the country. There are about 414 Easyday stores across the country, as well as 120 Heritage and 154 Nilgiri stores in the south.

“Opening more stores will in turn increase our brand presence,” Toshniwal added. Presently, about 35 per cent of the company’s sales comes from private label products. “The stated target of the group is to increase this in the next five years to about 65 per cent. Opening smaller format stores will increase penetration and help establish the brands further,” he explained.

Speaking about the challenges post Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said that as far as general merchandising is concerned, there were some supply disruptions, which were however regularised in a few weeks.

“Considering we are a large business, we manage a lot of our own merchandising and supply chain. Therefore, stocks for July and August were already brought into the stores without much hassle,” he added.

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