Vishal Retail Limited to start Forecourt Retail Marketing

Vishal Retail Ltd, which operates its 100 stores retail chains spread across 62 cities in India, has recently tied up with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) to start forecourt retailing at the HPCL outlets.

Talking to Business Standard, Manmohan Aggarwal, CEO (Corporate Affairs), Vishal Retail, said the convenient stores being opened at HPCL counters would be named as Vishal Corner Mart. He said that recently one corner mart was opened in Delhi and the company aims to open another 3-4 corner mart by this month end.

Out of the 3-4 Vishal Coner Mart to opened, one corner mart could also be opened at Ludhiana. Manmohan said that the forecourt retailing market in India was still not organised so the company would launching these forecourt in only 4-5 cities as pilot projects.

The business of non fuel products in forecourt retailing globally was around 40 per cent whereas it was only 10 per cent in India.

"Once the concept of forecourt retailing gets imbibed among the masses, Vishal may look at expanding this business to other parts of the country as well," Manmohan added.

Elaborating on the forecourt retailing venture of Vishal Retail Limited, which would be named Vishal Corner marts, Aggarwal said that the corner mart would be one stop solution to all the demands of customers coming to petrol pumps.

The store apart from acting as convenient store would also offer facilities like offering travel solutions to the customers, clearing their mobile and credit card bills besides hosting solution to variety of other problems.

Also Vishal Retail limited, for a pan India vision, is now looking to develop specialty stores in nine categories across the country.The speciality stores would be based on franchise model.

The nine categories that have been identified by Vishal Retail Limited includes Men's fashion mart, Ladies and Children Fashion Mart, Footwear Fashion Mart, Convenient Stores, Housemart, Games Mart, Watches and Accessories Mart and Consumer Durable Mart,.

The franchise based marts would come under the moniker Vishal Retail Limited and the company was looking for suitable franchise to carry on their business.

Aggarwal revealed that the company was planning to acquire 1 crore square feet area in next three years, which would be used for expanding their retail business.

He clarified for the moment that the company had no intentions to venture into construction activities.