Tata Group firm Infiniti Retail, which operates consumer durables and electronics chain Croma, plans to enter the eastern parts of the country in the next fiscal and the first set of stores in the region will come up in Kolkata.
“At present we do not have presence in the eastern part.
Our focus for the next fiscal will be to enter the eastern region and to start with, we will be opening stores in Kolkata,” Infiniti Retail Managing Director and Chief Executive, Mr Ajit Joshi, told PTI.
The company plans to open six to eight stores in Kolkata.
“These will be opened in a phased manner, and our property team is working on identifying locations. Similarly, we are also looking at opening stores in Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati and Jamshedpur,” he said.
The company also plans to further penetrate where stores already exist. “We will be opening four stores in Hyderabad and Chennai and a few more in Bangalore. Besides, we also plan to open around three to four more stores in Mumbai, taking the total number of outlets in the city to 24.”
The firm has embarked on various initiatives to boost the sales of its private labels, including setting up of service centres and introduction of service stand-by products.
“Currently, we have two service centres, one each in Delhi and Bangalore. We plan to set up such centres across the country,” Mr Joshi said, adding that initially, these centres will provide after-sales services for its private labels.
“The demand for our products has grown and we expect to make Rs 120-140 crore in revenues from private labels this fiscal compared with Rs 80 crore last year. This initiative will increase confidence among customers about the genuineness of our products,” Mr Joshi said.
“We also plan to provide stand-by products temporarily to customers in case gadgets develop any problems. So, until the gadgets are repaired, the customers can use these stand-by products so they do not have to suffer any interruption of service,” he added.