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Coimbatore
Gear up to enjoy a whole new shopping basket
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Coimbatore is fast becoming a preferred destination of malls
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Malls in Coimbatore will have to cater to the diverse needs of the traditional consumer and the urban youth
Photos: K. Ananthan and M. Periyasamy
Emerging trends: A view of the furniture displayed at the “@home,” a new age home store of furniture, furnishing and accessories opened by Nilkamal Group in the city.
Coimbatore is a preferred destination to many not just for one specific reason, but because it gives much to its residents in terms of quality of life. Be it climate, housing facility or the shopping areas coming up, it is always the best that one can ask for and available in plenty too.
M. Soundariya Preetha speaks to Naren Rajan, Chief Executive Officer of Tristar, and Manish V. Parekh, Director of Nilkamal Limited on their plans for Coimbatore and on organised retailing.
Tristar City is a retail mall that will come up on the Avinashi Road, near PSG College of Arts and Science, with about five-lakh sq ft built-up area in another 24 to 30 months.
This project from Tristar will house hospitality and retail services.
This is one of the five major retail projects that the city expects to see in the near future, offering a total of nearly two million sq ft built up area.
Emerging market
Coimbatore is an emerging market in organised retailing and the mature markets such as Mumbai are seeing high growth in this segment.
Mr. Rajan says organised retail can be neighbourhood stores, boutiques or specialty stores, department stores (about 20,000 sq ft with branded and unbranded products and services) or hypermarkets (over a lakh sq ft built-up area each).
Several factors such as location and infrastructure are important in organised retailing. In an emerging economy, a real estate developer should look at niche segments too. Living is only one use for a building. Hospitality and retail are some of the other uses.
But, how do you plan space for such organised retailing in a city that has a diverse population, high land costs, and tenancy problems.
Mr. Rajan explains that approximately, Coimbatore has 200 to 225 brands occupying either shelf-space in a retail outlet or has its own retail space. These are mostly high street space that does not lead to “impulse buying.”
With the new shopping mall projects, hundreds of other brands will get a space.
Manish V. Parekh, Director, Nilkamal Limited.
“We are just starting to be on the edge of the radar of the brand retailers.”
Shopping malls coming up in Coimbatore should cater to the traditional crowd and the “young urban kids” of the city, he says.
A shopping mall usually has 30 per cent to 45 per cent of the built-up space occupied by anchor tenants who give visibility and set the mood and tune for the mall.
Then there are hang-around spaces, some products for the consumer to just touch and see, and small shops.
On an average, a family spends four to five hours at the mall.
Some of the financially successful models are those that are functional, with adequate facilities for the consumers and operators. The mall has to evolve with economy and the consumer buying preference. China has some of the most recent and successful malls.
A hang-around space is planned between two anchor tenants so that the consumer can go back and buy a product that he or she just saw in one of the shops.
Thus, zoning is important, says Mr. Rajan.
Naren Rajan, Chief Executive, Tristar, Coimbatore.
While the proposed shopping project strives to provide such world-class shopping experience, Coimbatore already has a feel of it in some of the recent commercial ventures.
@home, the home store chain from the Nilkamal Group, occupies about 25,000 sq ft and the outlet in R.S. Puram is dedicated to home needs such as furniture, soft furnishing, accessories, lighting, etc.
“South is a great place to be,” says Mr. Parekh.
The company that forayed into organised retailing in 2005 with the first @home store in Pune plans more outlets in Chennai and Bangalore.
Of the 50 outlets that it proposes to have by 2010, nearly 30 will be in tier-two cities.
GDP
The GDP is growing, the country is witnessing a housing boom and people want to buy more of readymade goods now. All need to decorate their houses and hence the group decided to focus on home décor in retailing.
Each @home store is 20,000 to 30,000 sq ft and sees 4,000 to 5,000 groups of people visiting it in a month. Most of them are aged between 28 and 35.
With paucity of time, disposable income and lifestyle aspirations, organised retailing is happening in a big way in the country, he says.
“People are getting used to malls and multiplex.”
An architectural model of Tristar City.
With such a trend in the retail sector, the company invests Rs. 3 crore to Rs. 4 crore in each of its @home retail outlet and offers value added services too.
For instance, walk into the store with your house plan. Select the products for your house and one can see how these products will fit into one’s house with the help of a software developed by the company.
The goods are procured from different countries, apart from the domestic suppliers and are chosen as practical for the Indian scenario.
These are home maker stores catering to living, dining, bedroom, kitchen and garden products.
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