Recession ebbs, retailers look at expansion

Mumbai: Optimism was in the air at a recently held shopping forum and for the first time in many years, foreign retail players were active participants in this year's forum. After downing shutters and putting expansion plans on hold for eight months, retailers are expanding again.

Arvind Retail will be opening 1 large format store in June followed by 30 to 40 mega mart stores, 10 Flying Machine outlets and 15 Arrow outlets this year. Reliance Retail too will now start expanding though at a slower pace.

President Lifestyle Vetical, Reliance Retail, Bijou Kurien says, "That slowdown phase gave us an opportunity to reflect on our own business model, reflect on what kind of rentals we were paying, to go back to the drawing board. Also we are now being able to understand what is the right kind of business model for us."

Tommy Hilfiger will open 15 stores this year. Future Group recently opened one of its biggest Central stores in Indore.

But not everyone is as optimistic. Shoppers Stop feels the turn around will only come by January 2010.

Managing Director Shoppers Stop, BS Nagesh says, "I would say that there is another four to six months of pain because the kind of expansion that many people did, the expansion wasn't wrong but expansion compared to their ability was too much. If I have capability of one and I am running at two, I wanted to run at 10. That will get corrected probably in six months time."

Experts say the expansion may not be as fast as last year because players do not want to burn their fingers. However, it is a fact that some store sales in April and May have fared better than the last quarter and the upcoming festival season is expected to bring the industry completely back on track.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)

#Retail #recession #slowdown #India #turnaround