Sapna Agarwal, MINT (A Wall Street Journal Partner) Mumbai, October 19, 2012 A welcome sign in six languages—Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, French and English—greets customers at the entrance to India’s first Starbucks store, which opened Friday at Horniman circle in south Bombay, offering a glimpse of the localization that the Tata group and Starbucks Corp. are attempting. The atmospherics are spot on. There’s the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee; the decor is identifiably Indian, thanks to the signature jali (lattice) design; the mugs are emblazoned with Starbucks India along with an image of India Gate; iron trunks and jute bags stamped…
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Sagar Malviya, The Economic Times Mumbai, October 18, 2012 Mahindra Group plans to rejig its retail business by changing the product mix at its stores with more apparels, expanding aggressively through franchisee stores and even setting up stores abroad. "We might look at apparel centric mother and kids store," K Venkataraman, MD of Mahindra Retail, said. He said the company plans to increase the share of apparel in the total merchandise at its 'Mom & Me' stores to 60% from 40% now. Mom & Me caters to children and expecting and new mothers across categories such as baby food, strollers,…
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Raghavendra Kamath, Business Standard Mumbai, October 17, 2012 After opening 100 stores in the last four years under ‘Mom & Me’ brand, Mahindra Retail, the low profile retailing arm of of $15.5 billion Mahindra Group, wants to go full steam. The company, which retails maternity and baby products under ‘Mom & Me’, wants to open 50 stores under that brand, another 15 stores of its toy store Beanstalk in the next five and half months besides integrating e-commerce venture with physical stores and expanding its kidswear category by signing agreements with global brands. The company has also set up ‘Destination…
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Sapna Agarwal, MINT (A Wall Street Journal Partner) Mumbai, October 15, 2012 VIP Industries Ltd, India’s largest listed luggage company, is positioning itself as a lifestyle brand by diversifying into handbags. “Forty years ago, there was no branded luggage company in India. VIP created the category,” managing director Radhika Piramal said. “Now with Caprese (handbags), we hope to do the same thing,” VIP has a 65% share in the branded luggage market that is estimated to be anywhere between Rs.650 crore and Rs.1,000 crore, according to Piramal. Caprese aims to become a Rs.100 crore brand in five years and hopes…
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The Economic Times Mumbai, October 11, 2012 Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is playing "a local carpenter" by taking cues from Indian consumers on product design and function as it waits for the government nod to open stores in the country. "We have found that maybe we need to do things differently in India," Juvencio Maeztu, country manager of IKEA Retail India, said. "Maybe, we need to have different product function and quality in India that we don't have globally," he said on the sidelines of the Indian Retail Forum on Wednesday. A few months ago, a team from IKEA visited…
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