Future to push up fashion portfolio

KOLKATA: To shore up margins in the hypermarkets business, Kishore Biyani���s Future Group will push up the fashion portfolio in the Big Bazaar chain.

The group has recently created a sub-brand for apparel called ���Fashion@Big Bazaar��� and plans to reposition Big Bazaar as a value lifestyle store. Long-term plans also include rollout of standalone Fashion@Big Bazaar stores across India.

The apparel business contributes around 30% to Big Bazaar���s revenue with plans to increase this to 40% in two years. ���The margin contribution from apparel is much more than food and grocery. The decision to focus on fashion will help us increase our margins by 4-5%,��� Fashion@Big Bazaar chief Amit Kumar said.