Shoppers Stop, India’s leading departmental store chain has already put the slowdown behind it and is drawing up aggressive expansion plans. In the next 30 months, Shoppers Stop plans to open 18 new stores and invest around Rs 200 crore in these stores. “These stores
would be spread all over India. New cities that we are looking at are -- Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Coimbatore,” says Govind Shrikhande, President and CEO, Shoppers Stop. The chain which is already present in 12 cities is now spreading out to 24 cities. “Of the top 55 cities in India, we plan to look at 25,” he says.
Shrikhande says, during the slowdown Shoppers Stop looked at its loss-making formats that wouldn’t scale up and closed them down. “We have been able to make a full turn around this fiscal. In fact, we made a profit in the first quarter of this financial year,” he explains. As against mid-term profit of about Rs 7 crore last year Shoppers Stop made Rs 41 crore in the first half of this year. The chain recently added two more stores to take the total number to 28. Both the new stores came up in Hyderabad. Of the 20 categories of products the store has, apparel is the largest contributor. It contributes 58 per cent of their business. Shoppers Stop stores have an array of apparel brands. The popular ones are Tommy Hilfiger, Esprit, Louis Philippe and Arrow among menswear. In women’s wear it’s Hot Curry, Kashish, Life, Biba. And in kidswear it’s Ruff, Gini & Jony, Liliput. The company is now scouting for more global apparel brands to add to its existing list, which includes Germany’s Mustang Jeans and Playboy Apparels. “Apart from Mustang and Playboy, we would like to add at least two global brands every year in all categories.” says Shrikhande.
