The Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Retail Ltd will double its stores across all formats within the next five years.
The company's joint venture — Marks & Spencer Reliance India Pvt. Ltd — is also planning to increase the network of ‘Marks & Spencer' stores from the existing 20 to 50 in three years.
Reliance Retail currently has 1,050 stores and a pan-India presence. Of these, 650 are value format stores, while 400 are speciality ones.
There are 20 different format stores that include jewellery, apparel and books and music.
Mr Bijou Kurien, President, Reliance Retail, while speaking on the sidelines of the East India Retail Summit, said: “There has not been much expansion in the value format while speciality stores have seen rapid expansion. It is likely that there will be an expansion in the value format stores.”
Food items, that accounted for around 35 per cent of the total sales from a store till 2009-10, now account for almost 50 per cent of the total sales from an outlet.
By the end of this fiscal, Reliance Retail plans to add around 150 more stores across the country, Mr Kurien added. Till December 2010, the company had set up 200 such outlets across the country.
On an average, a Reliance Retail value store is spread across 2,000 to 3,000 sq ft and has over 6,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs). The cost of setting up such a store is Rs 1 crore.
Kolkata plans
Reliance Retail is planning to re-launch the Marks & Spencer store in the city. In the next two to three years, Reliance plans to set up four more Marks & Spencer stores here.
At present, there is only one Marks and Spencer store in the city after the second was closed down a few year back.
The city will also see the launch of Reliance format stores that include Reliance Jewellery, Reliance Digital and Reliance Trends in the coming fiscal, he added.