Shopping goes global

Mohini Bhatnagar
19 January 2003

Mumbai: In the past few years, global retail chains have been increasingly attracted towards the rapidly growing Indian market. The most recent is South Africa’s largest grocery retail supermarket group, Shoprite, which is finalising plans of setting up base here.

Since foreign direct investment (FDI) is not allowed in the retailing sector in India except in the cash-and-carry format, Shoprite Holdings Ltd is entering the Indian market through the franchisee route much like Marks & Spencer, Britain’s leading retail chain, which adopted this route to set up its operations here.

Shoprite is said to have tied up with Nirmal Lifestyle to set up a 70,000-sq ft hypermarket in the Nirmal Lifestyle Mall in Mumbai. The South African chain will be handling the entire mall, including food retailing and other consumer products, and will commence operations after March 2003.

All under one roof
Shoprite will offer a comprehensive range of groceries, household items and fresh food products under one roof with a strategy of offering basic commodities at low prices. Shoprite’s India plans come close on the heels of the group making a foray into Mauritius.

The Shoprite group of companies operates 598 outlets in 11 African countries apart from its home country, South Africa. It has a broad customer base in South Africa and retails in various store formats to cater to the different demographic profile of its customer base.

For instance, the stores known as Checkers, Hyperama and House & Home stores target the middle-to-upper-end market while Shoprite and OK Furniture target the middle-to-lower market.