Upbeat on the response Beverly Hills Polo Club (BHPC) has received, Spencer’s Retail, which introduced the American lifestyle brand in India in August 2009, now plans to take the brand forward by opening more exclusive brand outlets (EBOs).
“We currently have nine EBOs across Delhi, NCR and Punjab. And in the next couple of months, we will double that number, which means we are poised for rapid expansion. By year-end, we intend to have 40 EBOs across Delhi, NCR, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, etc,” says Anurag Rajpal, VP – Apparel, Spencer’s Retail Limited.
Our typical investments, Rajpal says, are in the range of Rs.50-60 lakh per store of the size of 1,000-1,200 sq.ft.
For expansion and market penetration, Spencer’s Retail is taking the cluster route. “We are looking at tier II & III cities. Jalandhar, Amritsar and Faridabad are a few cities in the north where we have already opened stores. When we get into metros such as Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, we will expand into tier II cities like Aurangabad, Nashik, Kolhapur, Mangalore, Vijaywada and Cochin,” he says.
Beverly Hills Polo Club has an exclusive tie-up with Spencer’s Retail, the retailing arm of RPG Enterprises.
In addition to expanding the BHPC brand, Spencer’s Retail also wants to launch two more international brands — Ladybird, a UK-based kidswear brand and Ecko, a US-based lifestyle brand. The company plans to open two EBOs of each brand in Delhi by July this year and will rapidly move into other territories on similar lines. Currently, Ladybird is present in select Spencer’s hypermarkets across India.
“Each brand has been evaluated on various aspects to meet business objectives before its inception in the brand. Such an exercise brought about positive elements for success, one of which was assigning the right space for stores to be viable,” Rajpal says.
As part of the company’s strategy, Spencer’s Retail is pegging at 1,000-1,200 sq.ft EBOs for BHPC, 1,200-1,500 sq.ft for Ecko stores while Ladybird is conceptualised between 800-1,000 sq.ft.
“Other aspects of looking at store sizes are catchment, adjacencies, competition mapping, expected throughputs, hi-street or mall land most importantly rentals. As result, we are viable with a mix of both hi-street and mall stores across markets. However, we are more in malls than in hi-streets at this point of time,” Rajpal adds.
— Shubhra Saini
