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    Trent to expand Westside, focus on smaller stores

    Synopsis

    On the food and grocery format, Auld said the joint-venture will open 20 new smaller stores this year, with hypermarkets no more “the centre of gravity” for future expansion.

    Westside stores


    Most Westside stores are turning profitable in one year of operations.

    Tata Group’s retail arm, Trent Ltd, is going to accelerate the expansion of Westside departmental stores by rolling out 30 new outlets this fiscal – the highest ever in a single year. The company, which runs a food and grocery retailing business in a joint-venture with Tesco, will also move away from launching large format hypermarkets and focus instead on smaller stores that are easier to break even, Trent’s managing director Philip Auld said.

    The company expects to continue this pace of growth for Westside for next 3-5 years whereby it expects to double the number of stores by then from 125 at present. Last fiscal, it set up 18 new stores. “Around half of the stores will be set up on the franchisee route while the balance will be company-owned. We are optimistic of the economy, with all indicators pointing to growth and improvement in consumer demand,” Auld said.

    Most Westside stores are turning profitable in one year of operations. “At present, just 2% of the Westside business is from third-party brands as compared to 22-23% seven years back with our in-house brands driving growth. Due to this, we are running the operations efficiently. In fact, expansion is adding to the engine rather than diluting it,” he said.

    Trent has also stopped expansion of its booktoys-stationary retail format, Landmark. Auld said the company is not giving up on the business despite declining sales of the categories, having broken even last year. “We will evolve the format since some of the standalone stores have good like-to-like growth,” he said. At present, there are seven Landmark stores.

    On the food and grocery format, Auld said the joint-venture will open 20 new smaller stores this year, with hypermarkets no more “the centre of gravity” for future expansion.



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