Reliance Fresh will be back in UP under new format

BANGALORE: Three months after Reliance Fresh was forced to down shutters in Uttar Pradesh, the Mukesh Ambani-led retail juggernaut is re-visiting the troubled market with a new strategy.

Leaving food and grocery business to traders for the time being, Reliance Retail is set to re-open some of the closed outlets largely in the NCR region under a new home solutions format, Reliance Home.

About three to four of the closed Reliance Fresh stores are likely to recast as the home solutions outlets by early January, sources said. Reliance Retail had to shut down 37 Reliance Fresh outlets across UP after the order from the UP government to close 10 Fresh stores in Lucknow in August this year, in the wake of protest by traders.

A high level committee was set up by UP chief minister Mayawati to study the impact of organised retail on local traders. The committee is yet to submit a report.

Sources said Reliance Retail’s plans to rejig its store network in UP under a new format which is expected to kick off in Noida and Ghaziabad, and expand to other markets subsequently, depending on how the situation unfurls. Reliance Retail president and chief executive (retail operations & strategy) Raghu Pillai declined to comment on the development.

Following protests, Reliance Retail had shelved its plans for opening around 200 Fresh outlets in UP in three years. It recently ended the lease for 150 retail properties in the state. However, it is clear that Reliance may not be able to rejig its entire closed store operations under the home solutions format given the business nature of the latter.

Reliance Retail plans to open over 330 Reliance Home outlets across India over three years. The format will initially start with offering soft home furnishing items such as drapes and curtains.

Eventually, it will offer furniture, model kitchens, lifestyle and ambiance products and moulded items among others. The home solutions format is also expected to be present as shop-in-shops within the Reliance Mart hypermarket, which was recently launched in Ahmedabad and will be expanded across India, sources say.

The home solutions market in India is seeing a lot of action with retailers like Shopper’s Stop, Lifestyle International and Future Group expanding their existing home solutions formats.

Meanwhile, Reliance Retail has till date unveiled Reliance Fresh, Reliance Digital, Reliance Mart, Reliance Trendz, Reliance Footprint and Reliance Wellness. It has earmarked an investment of Rs 25,000 crore for its expansion plans across formats till 2010-2011.