Click to play videoNew Delhi: Driving around for a fridge? Soon, you will have one more place to pick it from. Croma is a new line of stores from a new Tata Group company - Infiniti Retail.
The name, Croma, means colour in Greek and in India, it marks the first national retail chain for consumer durables - that's TVs, washing machines, microwaves and so on, which currently make up less than one per cent of the $300 billion Indian retail industry.
No wonder then, that the Tatas see great potential in this venture.
The first store of Infiniti Retail is all set to come up in a Mumbai suburb. The Tatas hope to have 100 Croma stores across India by 2010.
"We are looking at a format of 15,000 to 20,000 sq ft space," CEO of Infiniti Retail, Ajit Joshi says.
Each Croma store will stock 6,000 products across eight categories.
To begin with, Tata Sons is investing 400 crores in the chain that will be India's first national retailer in the consumer durables space.
It will compete with regional leaders like Mumbai's Vijay Sales and Sony Mony and Chennai's Viveks. And then there's competition from the likes of Koryo, Panataloon's in-house electronic brand with products sourced from China.
Not to forget Reliance Retail, which has equally aggressive plans for this sector.
All this competition may mean tighter margins and that's probably why Tatas have partnered with Australian retailer Woolworths for sourcing goods and managing the supply chain.
The Mumbai store, which will open on October 9, marks the Tatas entry into consumer durable retailing space.
Experts say the entry of organised players like the Tatas will have a marginal downward impact on prices, but what it will definitely do is improve the quality of customer care and aftersales services that is currently being offered by very few.
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