Pantaloon aims at 100% growth this quarter

Pantaloon Retail aims at 100 per cent growth in this quarter on the back of expansion in retail space and new schemes to attract customers.

Sanjeev Agrawal, president-marketing, Pantaloon Retail said, "We are very aggressive about this quarter, and this will be led by the Big Bazaar format, along with new store openings."

The company had ended the March quarter last year with net sales of Rs 274.95 crore (Rs 2.74 billion) and a net profit of Rs 10.69 crore (Rs 106.9 million).

This quarter will see a spate of store opening across different formats.

"We will be opening a number of standalone format stores for the first time this quarter," shares Agrawal.

This includes E-Zone, the lifestyle electronics store and Collection-I, the furniture store both of which will come up in Indore.

Other new formats coming up this quarter are Depot, the bookstore in Mangalore and about three Shoe Factory outlets which will be set up through the JV with Liberty Footwear.

The company will set up more Big Bazaar, Pantaloons and Fashion Station outlets in this quarter. At present the company has 25 Big Bazaars across the country and plans to add another 6-7 within the quarter depending upon how soon the respective properties are ready.

At present across formats, Pantaloon Retail covers 3.5 million square feet of space. Apart from this, starting this week, the value retailing store is launching another of their 'price challenges', this time even more competitive that the previous offers.

"We are offering a personal computer for less than Rs 10,000 and sarees for Rs 149," said Agrawal, adding that if the customer can find the same brand and quality for a lesser price, the store would pay back double the amount to the customer.

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