Plan & Design Truly World-Class Centres in India

Shopping Centre News, May Jun 2011

How to Plan & Design Truly World-Class Shopping Centres in the Indian Context

Planning and designing even ordinary shopping centres (malls), leave alone world-class shopping centres or
retail-led mixed-use developments, is not everyones cup of tea. Much like airports, hospitals, stadia and to a
lesser degree, educational institutions & hotels, shopping centres are also specialized buildings, and need
specialized planners and architects. This article gives you some broad guidelines on what (or not) to do, but cannot
replace customized work required for individual projects. Amit Bagaria, Chairman of Asipac Group, has been a
consultant in this field for 15 years and has led the planning and design of projects of over 18 million square feet.
In 2004, he conceived and planned Mall@Koramangala at Bangalore what was then the countrys first
supermall. Most retailers in India (and several overseas) considered the mall to be unarguably the best India
would have seen. Unfortunately, this project got stuck for years in zoning regulations. Bagarias first large mall
project to get completed is Mantri Square (Bangalore), one of the largest operational shopping centres in India.
Amongst other projects totaling over 6.0 million square feet, Bagaria has recently completed the planning & design
phases for two supermalls the 1.7 million square feet City Capital Mall at Hyderabad (the largest shopping centre
under construction in India) and the 1.47 million square feet Neomall at Bangalore (the second largest). This rich
experience has made him one of the most respected experts on this subject.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS/ABBREVAIATIONS USED IN THE ARTICLE

M/m: meters or metres

SQM/sqm: square meters

FT/ft: feet

SFT/sft: square feet

Super Mall: Shopping Centre with a GLA of 108,000 sqm

Regional Mall:

Shopping Centre with a GLA of >54,000 sqm but <108,000 sqm

Community Mall Shopping Centre with a GLA of >20,000 sqm but <50,000 sqm; Shopping Centres smaller than
20,000 sqm are referred to as Neighbourhood Malls

F&B Unit: Food & Beverage Unit, including Cafes, Coffee Shops, Restaurants, Express Food Counters in a Food
Court

EFC: Express Food Counter; usually a Food Court has a number of independently branded/operated EFCs, with
common seating, hand-wash, dish-wash/service areas

FEC: Family Entertainment Centre; there may be more than one FEC in a Super Mall

Lettable: Any space that can be leased/licensed to a third party

Shop: A lettable unit, including F&B outlets, Cinema/Multiplex, FEC, etc.

Anchor: A shop with UCA of >20,000 sft in case of Regional/Super Malls and >10,000 sft in case of Community
Malls

Mini Anchor: A shop with UCA of 6000 to 19,999 sft in case of Regional/Super Malls and 4000 sft to 9999 sft in
the case of Community Malls

Vanila: A shop with UCA of <7000 sft in case of Regional/Super Malls and <4000 sft in case of Community Malls

Supermarket: A shop that sells food/grocery & FMCG products, and (in the Indian context) has a UCA of 6000 to
35,000 sft.

Hypermarket: A large discount store that sells food/grocery, FMCG & general merchandise, and (in the Indian
context) has a UCA of >40,000 sft.

UCA: Unit Carpet Area, being the perimeter area of each shop or lettable unit (whether enclosed by four walls or
semi open on one/two sides), including columns within the unit but excluding shafts; measured up to 50% of the
wall thickness on the back and the sides and up to the front (outside) of the glazing line in the front of the unit

GCA: Gross Carpet Area, or the sum of the UCAs of all lettable units in the mall

GLA: Gross Lettable Area, an area equivalent to the GCA plus a pre-determined loading factor (which differs on a
case to case basis) to account for common areas such as circulation corridors, usually equal to the GBA (or super
built area) of the building, excluding MLCP/Basement floors

GBA: Gross Built-up Area of the building, including MLCP/Basement Floors

MLCP: Multi Level Car Park

CPS: Car Parking Spots

ATD: Average Trading Density (sales per sft per month)

How many Indian shopping centres were actually properly planned before they were designed and built? I can very
safely say that, of the 230+ operational shopping centres in the country, not more than 15 were planned properly.
If this were not true, why would High Street Phoenix (Lower Parel, Mumbai) need so much renovation/retrofitting
every so often, why would The Forum (Koramangala, Bangalore) not have a supermarket occupying at least 10% of
its GCA, why would DLF Promenade have been built without any anchor store except a multiplex, why would the
first Inorbit mall (Malad, Mumbai) need to have a hypermarket and a supermarket, why would Spencer Plaza die so
soon despite being located in the best location a shopping centre could possibly have, why would Triton (Jaipur) be
struggling even two years after opening, why would the Esprit store have to be replaced with Nalli at Oberoi Mall
(Goregaon, Mumbai) and why would Pepe Jeans be located between six ethnic wear stores at the recently opened
Royal Meenakshi Mall (Banerghata, Bangalore)?

The list of badly planned malls is endless and if I were to go on, this article would be more about what not to do
than what needs to be done. Some people could argue that some of the malls named above are doing very well
yes, while that is true to some extent, it is equally true that al of them are doing well because of the lack of
competition.

Before doing anything else, the promoters of any shopping centre project must first do a Needs Analysis Study
(NAS) to answer the basic question is a new shopping centre really needed at that particular location and is
there a large enough catchment to service the project? I am very proud of the fact that all four operational retail
projects handled by Asipac are amongst the best performers in their respective categories or locations and we are
yet to see a failure. This is because we are extremely diligent about accepting projects more than 90% of the
projects that come to Asipac are actually rejected after we do an internal NAS. Most new recruits at Asipac come to
the conclusion within the first 4-5 months that they are working for the craziest boss that one could dream of
someone who rejects a vast majority of the projects that come through our door (or email) every week. If we

accepted even half of the projects, we would be earning 4-5 times more than what we make today but the cost
of that would have to be borne by the promoters.

An average SEC-A/B Indian household can sustain about 12 sft of GCA so, a shopping centre with a GCA of
300,000 sft needs a primary catchment of 25,000 SEC-A/B households. Please note that 12 sft is a nationwide
average, so it can go down to as little as 6 sft in an conservative low-spending neighbourhood (like most of
Ahmedabad or Kanpur) and could also go up to 20 sft in a high-spending, yuppie catchment like Gurgaon in NCR,
Andheri West in Mumbai or Electronics City in Bangalore.

If the NAS proves that there is a need for a shopping centre, the next step is to do a proper Trade & Tenancy Mix
Analysis (TATMA). This has to be based on the shopping habits of the consumers in the primary catchment. A
proper TATMA will ensure that one does not open a Chicking or Great Kabab Factory in a predominantly vegetarian
area or have 90% of the apparel space dedicated to western wear in a catchment where 84% of women
wear sarees. Asipac was criticized by many modern retailers for putting several local ethnic retailers in Mantri
Square at Bangalore. In fact, many snobbish retailers refused to come into this fantastic shopping centre for this
very reason. Ethnic wear is the best performing category at Mantri Square. We wanted to put in at least 10,000 sft
more of ethnic wear, but were not allowed by the gora manager, who was unfortunately allowed to take the final
decision about a catchment he just did not understand. If you dont open Indias largest Apple store in Electronics
City, where will you put it in Punes NIBM area?

The TATMA has to lead to a well-thought Space Program as well as an A&E Brief. The Space Program has to define
what types and sizes of shops the shopping centre should have and how they are to be spread/located on different
floors. The A&E Brief has to guide the architects and engineers as to how they need to go about designing the
project.

Many promoters/developers still think that all this is not necessary if they get experienced foreign architects or
even top Indian architects. Nothing could be further from the truth and let me tell you why. Indian retailers and
consumers are both very different from their foreign counterparts. For example, all retailers in UK accept a width
(frontage) to length (depth) ratio of 1:3.5 or 1:4. In India, retailers actually want a reverse ratio most would be
very happy if their 1000 sft shops were to have a frontage of 50 feet and a depth of only 20 feet. By that logic,
success of a retail store in an Indian shopping centre should be directly proportional to the frontage of the shop.
Jokes apart, most Indian retailers DO NOT accept a length (depth) of more than 2.5 times the width (frontage).
Another huge difference the average size of a vanilla store in USA or UK is 2150 sft, whereas in India the ATD of
many vanilla retailers start falling beyond 700-800 sft. Customer washroom density needs in India are 2-3 times
that of North American or European shopping centres seems like our western brothers & sisters are pissed off.
We have another unique need separate washrooms for staff, especially the security and housekeeping staff.
Another difference is that Indian shopping centres (if they are successful) have much larger crowds than their
foreign counterparts.

As far as Indian architects are concerned, the less I say about them the better. They still dont realize that a
turning/curving ramp driveway needs a minimum width of 4.0m, or that most Indian cars are not Maruti 800s, or
that hypermarkets/supermarkets need unloading docks for full-sized trucks, or that a food court will need water
supply and drainage. Their complete disinterest in understanding the special needs of a shopping centre building
leads to huge time and cost over-runs, but many penny-wide pound-foolish developers just fail to accept this fact.

The Space Program must actually define the actual washroom needs by type, based on a throughput & utilization
study. It must also define the number of parking spots needed. The urban human population of India is growing
@10 million p.a. or 2.5 million households p.a. The urban car population is increasing by 1.7 million p.a. So,
there are almost seven new cars for every 10 new households. What does this tell you?

It tells me that it is high time we started getting serious about parking spaces in shopping centres. When I
presented a case study at the India Fashion Forum 2005 on how shortage of parking spaces can kill a mall, many
people in the audience laughed it off. Of the 125 Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays that Mantri Square has
seen in its 13 months, parking has been choked on 107 days. Is this a joke? Who is suffering? Yes, definitely the
retailers but also the owner, as most rentals nowadays are based on revenue share.

If a shopping centre has to achieve an average rent of Rs.120/sft on carpet area, it needs an ATD of 11 times that
amount or Rs.1320 p.m., or Rs.43.39 per square foot per day. Since an average family spend is just Rs.1400 per
mall visit, there need to be one family visit per day for every 32.27 sft of carpet area. So, the shopping centre
needs 31 families per 1000 sft of carpet area per day. Since the average turnover per parking spot is 4.4 per day,
a shopping centre would need 7.05 parking spot per 1000 sft of carpet area if all days would have equal footfalls.
Since Sunday (peak) footfalls are 1.75 times the daily average, the shopping centre would need 12.34 parking
spots per 1000 sft of carpet area, if all visitors were to use their own transport. If we assume that 25% of the
visitors to an Indian shopping centre come by bus/taxi/auto, we still need to provide 9.26 parking spots per 1000
sft of carpet area.

Most developers dont even providing one-third of this number yet they want higher rents. Retailers are equally
to blame they should not sign on projects that have less than at least 6 parking spots per 1000 sft of carpet area.

The A&E Brief has to lay down the guidelines for the structural, services and infrastructure design of the project.
For any shopping centre to succeed, the functional design should be done inside out, rather than outside in, i.e.
create blocks/bubbles (to scale) of the individual anchor shops and groups/clusters of vanilla shops. Then these
bubbles should be assembled (like a jigsaw puzzle) based on vertical and horizontal zoning requirements.

A good shopping centre needs to have a floor-to-floor (height of minimum 5.5m on the ground floor and 4.5m on
other floors. The multiplex needs a clear height (top of slab to bottom of beam) of minimum 11.0m, and a FEC
6.5m. The parking floors should have a minimum floor-to-floor height of 3.4m.

There should be enough break-out areas to cut the monotony and also to allow the visitors (especially senior
citizens) to take rest. Each of these break-out areas could be themed differently and should have minimum seating
for 20 people in case of Super Malls, 12 people in case of Regional Malls and 8 people in case of Community Malls.
There should also be seating for 4-8 people at different locations (within the circulation spines) throughout the
shopping centre.
The most functional and time tested design of the main circulation spine in the case of Super Malls is a

double-doughnut (or 8) shape (such as theexample of the plan given here on the right), so that there are no
dead ends and visitors can always come back to where they started from, instead of losing their way around, or
being forced to turn around and come back the same path they have already taken people dont like to do this
and all shops dont get even footfalls if this happens.

In Regional Malls, spines or circulation systems shaped like a doughnut, oval or rectangle (such as the one in the
plan shown here below) are the most ideal.
In the case of Neighbourhood Malls and Community Malls, these design parameters have to be

decided based on the permissible ground coverage and the resultant building footprint, as not much more than one
central atrium or corridor system may be realistically feasible.

In any case, regardless of the exact shape of the main spine or circulation system, there should be no negative
spaces leading off dead end corridors, such as the ones at the bottom or the centre left on the plan shown here
below.

As far as possible, there should be no dead-end corridors and all corridors should loop back. In case of passages
leading to public washrooms or lifts, there should not be any shop openings from such passages.

The minimum widths of the main public circulation corridors leading to shops should be as follows:

Double-loaded corridor serving anchors: 7.6m

Double-loaded corridor not serving anchors: 7.0m

Single-loaded

corridors,

side of cut-outs: 4.0m

Atrium Corridors with cut-outs above: 10.0m

Corridors in front of Hypermarkets: 8.4m

including

corridors

on

either

Passages leading to washrooms, etc.: 2.5m

In the case of Super Malls, the architects should design much wider spines and corridors.

Part of the planning process for Super Malls and regional Malls involves category-wise zoning and clustering. This is
especially important for certain categories like maternity & newborn, children, footwear and jewellery. Consumer
surveys have shown that most consumers by and large prefer zoned malls, as Indians hate to walk around too
much.

Atriums should give a feeling of openness and grandeur. There should be minimum 3 pairs of Escalators connecting
each floor (with the floor below and the floor above) for a shopping centre with a floor plate of up to 50,000 sft,
and one additional pair of escalators for every additional 40,000 sft, including escalators installed within multi-level
Department Stores.

The back of escalators can be converted into usable spaces, like the one shown in the picture here on the right
side. The location of escalators should be convenient to go up three floors at a time i.e., when she goes up from
one level to the second and wants to move on to the third level, she should not have to walk a long distance to get
the next escalator. It is absolutely wrong to believe that she will shop more if she is forced to walk more (in front
of shops) between two sets of escalators. On the contrary, visitors to malls with such customer unfriendly layouts
usually get frustrated with this kind of inconvenient design and stop visiting such malls when they get better
choices.

All Basement (parking) floors should be connected with the Hypermarket Floor with a pair of travelators (flat
escalators without steps), to facilitate the visitor in carrying a trolley up or down a floor. In case of Super Malls,
there could be two pairs of travelators.

The depth:frontage ratio of the vast majority of individual shops (in India) should be between 2.5 :1 and 3.5:1.
Footwear stores can have a ratio of 4:1, but this restricts their use only as a footwear store, thus removing any
adaptive reuse in the future. Anchor spaces can be designed differently, where small vanilla stores are carved out
of the frontage of the anchor stores, like shown in the case of Woolworths (one of the largest anchor store chains in
South Africa) in the picture on the left here. Restaurants also do not need big frontage.

Every floor of a shopping centre (except the floor on which the Food Court is located) should have at least one
open caf (or other F&B outlet) if possible, open (no walls) on two and even three sides, otherwise at least on
one side, for a floor plate of up to 60,000 sft, and minimum two cafes for larger floor plates. These open cafes
allow for people-to-people visual interaction thus adding energy to a mall, become meet & greet places and also
serve as break-out areas.

Architects should also try to incorporate open shops without walls (like the one shown in the picture on the left)
near cut-outs or openings for escalators / staircases, etc. This adds much needed relief from the monotonous
line/s of walled shops in any typical enclosed shopping centre.

One must also pay attention to the very important fact that the world of retail is moving towards open format
shops, with no front glazing or doors, so that the customer (prospective buyer) always thinks that she is welcome
inside. This factor should be considered very strongly in the structural as well as services design, as open shops
can only be secured by means of rolling shutters, which need to be camouflaged when the mall/shop is open.

Globally, well-planned shopping centres earn between 9-15% of their revenue from temporary hiring/letting of
walls, surfaces and other non-floor (non-tenanted) spaces for the purpose of branding, commercial advertising, etc.
The architect must keep this in mind when designing the building and try to provide ample advertising
opportunities throughout the public spaces in the shopping centre. An excellent example is shown in the picture
here.

Just as one enters through the main pedestrian entry into a shopping centre, it is always good to have an
Information Desk (like a Reception in an Office or a Hotel) and it is good to provide some waiting areas (with
seating) next to the Information Desk (see example in picture on the right). Such waiting areas can come in very
handy in case someone is not well, a senior citizen needs assistance, or if a child is lost.

Any good mall has to ensure that all new or infrequent visitors can find their way around the mall easily, and find
the shops they are looking for. Gone are the days of printing thick mall directories and distributing them to one and
all, as not only does this cost a bomb, it is a colossal waste of natural resources. As we are moving towards green
malls, visitors in modern malls are guided by electronic (often interactive) display Info Screens or Kiosks, which
contain a mall map, a directory of tenants and other information. Places should be provided on each floor of the
mall (near each elevator bank) for such kiosks or screens on stands, like shown in the picture here.

Any good shopping centre should have several ATMs, with a minimum of one on each floor, one near the
Hypermarket/Supermarket, one near each Cinema Box Office and one on each parking floor. ATMs within the retail
areas can be very interestingly designed like the example shown here. In the next few years, Cinema operators will
start insisting on installing Automated Ticketing machines at different points throughout the mall, so provision must
be made for this as well.

Dedicated trolley parking zones (such as the one shown in the picture here) should be accommodated (just outside
the hypermarket/supermarket) in the design if the shopping centre has a hypermarket or a large supermarket.

All entry points into the main (air-conditioned) customer areas should be through a vestibule (like the one shown in
pink in the plan of the White House on the right) and such vestibule should have positive air pressure compared
with the space it leads into (see plan on right). In Indian climate, the hot and humid air infiltrating from outside

condenses as it comes into contact with surfaces that have been cooled by the indoor air-conditioning of the
centre, promoting condensation and other problems, including unhealthy air quality. Uncontrolled infiltration can
exceed the capability of an HVAC system to manage indoor temperature and humidity. This can create discomfort
(too hot, too cold) and indoor air quality problems caused by excessive moisture and mold. Maintaining control of
HVAC pressures is key to controlling indoor pollutants and odours. Indian Malls have huge HVAC bills because of
this problem, which is easily resolved with a small, one-time cost. Vestibules of the type shown here on the left can
also be considered.

All public entry points from the street level into the building should have disabled access ramps with a minimum
width of 1.0m. There should be 2-3 access points from the Basement car parks, so that customers do not have to
walk for long distances within the Basement and also do not choke up only one entry into the Ground (or Lower
Ground) Floor.

Depending on the city and its common mode of paid (non-shared) public transportation, the architect needs to
accommodate a taxi/auto parking area on the master plan. The ideal number of taxi/auto parking spaces is 20
(twenty) per 50,000 sft of GLA.

Considering all the security measures that one needs to adopt in any public building in todays violent world, it is
ideal to design for a number of vehicles backing up one behind the other at the entry for the purpose of security
checks.

As merchandise (stocks) need to be replenished frequently, especially in stores such as the Hypermarket,
Department Stores, Furniture, Electronics (CDIT), etc., adequate service circulation should be provided, including
back entries into such shops. If possible, back entries should be provided for all shops with UCA of >300 sqm.
Please keep in mind that some shops will be receiving goods as large/heavy as Double Beds, Dining Tables, 72 TV
sets, 400-litre Refrigerators, etc., so the service corridors and freight elevators (lifts), doorways etc, need to be
adequately designed.

A Hypermarket needs dedicated docking/unloading bays of a size no less than 14.0m (width) x 4.0m (depth) x
1.0m (height), ensuring that the top of the dock is level with the finished floor of the unit and that the level of the
driveway at docking point is 1.0m below such top of the unloading dock level, for two 16-ton HCVs, four MCVs and
four small freight vehicles such as autos. Each department store, furniture store and CDIT store will need (shared)
unloading bays for one HCV, two MCVs and two small freight vehicles. For all shops not connected directly with an
unloading bay, common bays are needed for one HCV, 3-4 MCVs and 6-12 small freight vehicles.

Service/freight lifts have to be different from passenger lifts and should be of 1500/2000 kgs capacity, with big car
sizes to accommodate furniture, double-door refrigerators and similar merchandise. Passenger lifts should be of
minimum 20-pax capacity (regardless of size of the centre) and should ideally be in a Lift Bank with no less than 3
in each bank. For large centres, one should consider passenger lifts with 32-pax (or higher) capacity.

Washroom sizes (for visitors/staff) have to be computed for each individual centre based on its size and floor plate.
Lady Washrooms should have provisions for microwave ovens (to heat milk) and changing mats like shown in the
picture below, with a small booth (with curtain) for breastfeeding of newborns.

The Multiplex (Cinema) will need larger washrooms, as several people go at a time (during intervals, or when the
movie ends). There should ideally be a set of washrooms just outside the cinemas exit corridors, so that people
wanting to visit the washroom and exiting the mall after a movie dont have to go back into another area in the
mall just to use a washroom.

Structural columns in parking areas should be designed in such a way that they help a person locate a parking zone
by colour and letter coding, like the example shown in the picture here. In addition, directional arrows painted on
the road surface should clearly guide the driver along one-ways. The second picture here is a fantastic example of
how parking areas can be designed. Most Indian developers and architects ignore this space remember, this is
the first impression that a new customer gets of the mall, and also the last impression for every vehicle owning
customer.

Staff

lockers

and

staff

cafeteria are

required

and

these

are

often

forgotten/ignored

by

most

architects/developers. Happy staff result in happy shoppers which means greater revenue for the tenants and
therefore for the developer. The Space Program should have the exact sizes for these facilities, based on a
computation of the number of staff (of the tenants and mall management/vendors) that will be employed at each
centre. There should also be a drivers lounge and washrooms in the basement floor/s.

Most retail stores will generate plenty of waste (such as packing materials) regularly. There should be a large Dry
Garbage Room (100 sft for every 2000 sft of trading area). A trash compactor (like the one shown here) needs to
be installed in all Regional Malls and Super Malls.

The facade should give an appearance of largeness.The architect should leave maximum wall surfaces as plain
plaster, for external tenant signage, as per the two examples shown below. There is no need to put any glazing or
windows on external walls which have a shop directly behind glazing only needs to be provided if the immediate
area behind that part of the faade is open (a caf or food court seating area or an atrium).

Angular building views from different approaches to the shopping centre (for vehicles approaching from both
directions) to be clearly defined. If possible, it is a great idea for signage towers on both ends (corners) of the front
of the site, abutting the main road.

The architects and services consultants must understand that most F&B outlets will have live cooking. Therefore,
these will need fresh air & exhaust (hoods), water supply, drainage and provision for wet & dry garbage disposal.
Also provide for several electrical outlets (15/30 Amps) in each outlet and a common Gas Bank, with piped gas,
including each EFC in the Food Court.

The Food Court should have a common dish-wash/drying cum storage area of 750-1000 sft, depending on the size
of the centre. The number of seats required in the Food Court will differ from centre to centre, based on the GCA
and the projected footfalls. A Food Court should also have a hand-wash area, separate from the washrooms. The
service passage/s behind the EFCs should be minimum 2.75m wide, and even 2.50m is a compromise.

All the auditoriums/theatres in the cinema (multiplex) should have separate entry and exit points, and the exits
should lead everyone back into the shopping centre. If possible, one should try to provide for a Drive-through Box
Office, so that people can drive into the site and purchase cinema tickets in advance without having to go into the
shopping centre. In any case, all types of centres must have a Box Office on the Ground Floor, facing and opening
onto the main road.

In Regional Malls and Super Malls, there should be minimum parking space for 60 hypermarket carts (trolleys) on
each of the basement / MLCP floors, broken into 3 clusters of 20 trolleys each on each floor. In Community Malls,
parking space is needed for 12-16 supermarket carts on each basement/MLCP floor. All common areas including
pedestrian movement areas in the parking floors should have smooth flooring to facilitate easy movement of these
carts without damaging their wheels.

Multi-level anchor stores will need vertical circulation to connect each of the floors vide a pair of up & down
Escalators, one 8-pax Passenger Elevator and a Customer Staircase.

When designing a new centre, one has to be very careful about the structural grid system. Many Indian centres
have erred on this front. The column grids need to be designed keeping in mind the most efficient grid for parking
spots in the basement floor/s. It is our experience that a grid of 8.4m X 10.8m works best, as it allows for different
sized storefronts on the upper floors, while three cars fit easily into a 8.4m grid and four fit well in a 10.8m grid.

It must be kept in mind that different types of users in a shopping centre have different electrical load
requirements. While most vanilla stores can do with about 6.5 watts per sft, a multiplex typically requires 45 to 55
Kw per auditorium, a CDIT store 12-14 watts, a hypermarket or supermarket 10-11 watts, while department stores
and jewellery stores need 8-9 watts per sft. A good shopping centre must have 100% backup power with an
automated changeover system, which comes on within 15 seconds, so that lifts and escalators with people on them
do not stop suddenly. Developers of shopping centres should provide cabling up to every unit for CCTV, PA System,
Mall Radio, DTH TV and High Speed voice and data communications through multiple service providers.

As we now live in the go green era and need to be environmenally conscious, paramount importance should be
given to energy saving features. While there are any number of technologies that can be used for different systems
in a shopping centre, some of the simpler initiatives would be to use T-8 lamps with electronic ballasts as much as
possible. Compact spots should be used instead of incandescent accent lights (spots).

For retail store lighting, medium to high general lighting, 270 to 750 lux, is appropriate, combined with accent
lighting. The accent light level should be five times higher than the general lighting. Visual merchandising scenes
may be highlighted. A neutral colour temperature, 3500k to 4100k and high color rendering, at least 75 CRI,
encourages the customer to browse leisurely through a department. Maximum attention is directed onto the
merchandise. Triphosphor fluorescent, incandescent, and color-improved high pressure sodium and metal halide
may all be appropriate. Perimeter lighting of wall displays is important to add a spacious feel and to accent the
merchandise. Fluorescent lamps behind a valence are most popular. The ends must overlap at least by an inch to
eliminate dark spots.

HVAC consultants also need to understand the specific requirements of a shopping centre. The special needs of the
Food Court areas, such as odour control, outdoor air requirements, kitchen exhaust, heat removal, and
refrigeration equipment require special attention. Depending on the type of shop, a tenant may maintain either a
negative or positive pressure relative to the common areas of the shopping centre for odour control. The centres
air distribution system typically maintains a slight positive pressure relative to outdoors. Exterior entrances need
vestibules with independent HVAC systems. Most tenants are happy with 1.0 TR per 200 sft of UCA. Some insist
on higher tonnage. Obviously, units consuming higher power (such as electronics/CDIT store) will generate higher
heat and may thus need higher tonnage. Chilled water should be delivered at the units/shops at 6.5 1C so that
the temperature in the shop is maintained at 22.5 1C. The HVAC consultant should work towards better energy
efficiency. Cooling tower heat exchanger economizers, heat pumps and thermal storage systems should be
thoroughly investigated.

Shopping centres also have unique water services requirements when compared with other types of commercial
buildings.

Water supply and drainage is required by all F&B outlets, multiplex, most types of FECs,

hypermarket/supermarket, salons, spas, gyms, jewellery stores and eyewear stores. Since so many different types
of retailers require water and it is very difficult to predict what store may come where as the shopping centre
develops, it is safe to provide for water and drainage in all stores.

The Food Court, restaurants, cafs, etc., have many other unique requirements. For example, they need piped gas
(you cant really have cylinders constantly moving up and down a shopping centre!). They also need grease traps
and exhaust ducts.

If the design team (ideally comprising the retail consultant, project managers, architects, letting managers,
services consultants, signage consultants, parking operators, housekeeping agency and owners representative)
works in cohesion and follows these basic guidelines, they can together create a world-class shopping centre.
However, apart from the technical requirements, the design team and especially the architect needs to always
remember that customers make a shopping centre successful and not developers, architects or retailers. And
customers will only come back frequently if the experience in the shopping centre either while they are shopping
or visiting the washroom or parking their car or even just walking around is a happy experience

If they often

get lost trying to find their way around, or have to stand in long queues for lifts/washrooms, or have difficulty in
getting in or out, they will stop coming back the moment a better mall opens nearby.

Ultimately, it is very important for any shopping centre (especially Super Malls and Regional Malls) to try and be
everything for everyone. If the kids are happy playing a wide variety of games or taking different types of rides,
grandparents are happy with colourful break-out zones and can kill time simply by visually connecting with the
youth, if women can get a facial and hair job while the man plays a game of virtual cricket, all this will increase
family visits and average dwell time, and people will generally shop more.

If shopping centres of the future can provide everything that a family needs after office/school hours shopping,
leisure, entertainment, dining, banqueting, socializing, banking, sports & recreation, hobby/educational services,
healthcare/wellness, etc, this will automatically lead to higher footfalls and more balanced usage seven days a
week.

Amit Bagaria is Founder Chairman of Asipac Projects, Indias leading mall development consultant, Asipac Mall
Services, Indias fastest growing mall management company and MEN & BOYS, the worlds largest chain of retail
stores for mens cosmetics, skincare, hair care and grooming products.

Retail Giants of Tamil Nadu August 2011

Everyone talks about them, but most dont have a clue about the real size of their business. I am referring to the
traditional Dravidian retail giants who have dominated Tamil Nadus retail landscape for decades, and dont seem to
be affected a bit with the onslaught of modern department stores or malls in their home turf.

Saravana Stores does annual business of Rs.510+ crores from a 7-floor store (thats more than what any single
Lifestyle, Central or Shoppers Stop store does). From four stores, Saravana does Rs.1200+ crores. Thats twothirds more than the Rs.717 crores turnover reported by Tatas Trent, which includes Westside (54 stores),
Landmark (18 stores) and Star Bazaar (12 stores). The Chennai Silks is estimated to be doing business of
Rs.1150+ crores (excluding jewellery) from nine stores, Nalli Rs.700+ crores from 22 stores, Pothys Rs.650+
crores from four stores and RMKV Rs.510+ crores from four stores. These five Tamil Nadu retailers do sales of
Rs.4200+ crores, more than the turnover of Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Westside and Reliance Trends put together.

This is the power of regional retail. Modern retailers are still trying to figure out how to make it happen. After
months of efforts, Asipacs research team finally got hold of two of these giants lets read what they have to say.

WHY DOES RmKV TRADE THREE TIMES LIFESTYLE OR SHOPPERS STOP?

Back in 1924, with India under British rule and organised retail non-existent, Rm.K.Vishvanatha Pillai set up a 1000
square feet womens wear shop in Tirunelveli named RmKV after his initials. With silk sarees as its core product,
the shop operated from this location until it shifted to a much larger 35,000 square feet megastore elsewhere in
Tirunelveli in the 1950s. As it turned out, that market was to grow by leaps and bounds, positioning RmKV at the
centre of a thriving retail hub.

According to Rm.K.Sivakumar (Siva), a third generation family member now running the business, It was no
coincidence that RmKV became the brand it is today. From day one, my grandfather worked with a mission of being
honest and transparent, while focusing on efficiency at the back-end. In the 1920s he had a system to identify
each product through a Unique Numbering System. With the advent of computers in the 1980s it became much
easier, but the transition was smoother for us because of the system he had put in place, and we follow the basics
of that system till date.

For 80 years, RmKV operated a single store. Eventually, the market became so big and so crowded that, as per
Siva, the customer experience started deteriorating. Access had become a problem, and there was hardly any
parking for the increasing number of shoppers with private vehicles. With organised retail emerging at the turn of
the century, RmKV decided to expand and take the brand outside Tirunelveli. A 35,000 square feet store was
opened in Chennai in 2004. Four years later, RmKV opened its biggest store, a 100,000 square feet outlet in
Tirunelveli. The original shop in the old market area continues to operate.

As a sign of RmKVs desire to move with the times, the fourth store (58,000 square feet) was opened in 2010
inside a mall Brookefields Plaza, Coimbatore. We did a survey before we took the decision. Normally, silk sarees
are sold in traditional markets, and we were unsure of the turnover we could achieve in a mall. We were pleasantly
surprised with the results of the survey, with a majority of people saying if the price and quality of product stayed
true to the RmKV brand, they would shop with RmKV in a mall, says Siva. Asipac estimates RmKVs sales at
Brookefields Plaza at Rs. 1416 crores per month, three times that of the similar sized Lifestyle in the same mall.

Another example of RmKV adapting to change was the online sales platform. A catalogue of almost 1500 sarees is
currently online. Says Siva, Weddings is our main business, and with weddings now planned, it helps a customer
to visit the website and identify the products that fit their taste and budget. Even if they do not buy online because
they want to touch and feel the product, by the time they visit our store, they pretty much know what they want,
making the process that much easier.

With a turnover that crossed Rs.510 crores in the last fiscal, RmKVs ATD is an impressive Rs.1865. This is almost
three times that of Shoppers Stop. This is noteworthy because their ABV is just Rs.1250, not exceptionally high by
industry standards. With an average (four stores) 7500 daily footfalls and 11,000 on weekends and holidays, I
estimate RmKV will cross Rs.700 crores this year.

Competitive pricing and quality have been our strength. From the beginning, our business model has been one of
low margin and high turnover, with margins usually in line with prevailing interest rates, says Siva. During World
War II, a quota system put a ceiling on the amount of merchandise a retailer could sell to each customer. Retailers
used to make a killing, selling at 2-3 times the normal price. Even then, my grandfather used to sell at 6-7%
margin, equal to the prevailing interest rate.

When asked about entering market segments other than silk sarees, Siva said, Silk sarees define our brand. It is
who we are. We are open to other segments as long as the parent brand is not diluted. We have diversified into
RTW, dress material, artificial jewellery, womens accessories, innerwear, synthetic sarees, but silk sarees is where
we focus most of our energies on. Maybe it was due to this unyielding focus that RmKV was not heavily impacted
by the recent slowdown. Infact, they expanded in that phase, and ended up benefitting from lower sourcing costs
during the slowdown.

I wondered why RmKV opened three stores in six years when it had taken them 80 years to open the second.
RmKV has also signed a store of 60,000 square feett at the upcoming Forum Mall in Chennai. We believe that
growth is important, but so is sustainability and turnover. Planning and controlling the back-end process is critical.
We did not want growth for the sake of growth, and it was only after a thorough study of new locations,
competitors as well as customer behaviour that we decided that the time was right to expand. As for future
expansion, Sivakumar felt that the biggest challenge lay in managing multiple stores spread across a wider
geography, and getting their formats right. He said that Nallis is a great example of a regional competitor that had
successfully expanded across the country. When queried about how he plans to fund future expansion plans, Siva
said that he would be open to external funding, although it might be too early to think of an IPO. I couldnt agree
more, considering that RmKV has not yet stepped outside Tamil Nadu. PE investors will give RmKV a valuation of
Rs.900-1000 crores. Thats more than listed companies such as Brandhouse (S.Kumars Group) and Provogue. If
FDI was allowed in multi-brand retail, the valuation would be above Rs.1250 crores.

While on the topic of Nallis, Sivakumar gave them credit for spreading awareness about Indian ethnic wear
amongst Indias youth, especially at a time when the general trend is towards western wear. It is one of the
challenges we face getting younger women to wear sarees more often, he says.

Like most businesses, identifying, recruiting, training and retaining high quality manpower remains a challenge for
RmKV too. Our frontline staff are from modest academic backgrounds and we conduct weeklong training sessions
three times a year, outsourced to a professional agency, thereby ensuring that the staffs product knowledge and
customer service is top notch. Our senior management, on the other hand, comprises of educated professionals
from reputed institutions. Overall, we strive to instil in our employees a sense of ownership and belonging towards
the brand it makes a positive impact on customers and it helps us counter attrition issues to some extent, says
Sivakumar.

So what makes RmKV achieve three times the trading density of Shoppers Stop and four times that of Westside? Is
it because they are 87 years old? Or because they work on lower margins? Or is it because a majority of Indian
women still wear ethnic? I believe it is a combination of all three. I see RmKV crossing a turnover of Rs. 1000
crores by FY 2013. Surely, a retailer of this size cannot be ignored by the industry.

CAN THE CHENNAI SILKS GO PAN-INDIA WITHOUT BEING IN A MALL?

Born into a family of weavers at Tirupur, in 1962, A.Kulandaivel Mudaliar set up a 100 square feet shop in Madurai,
selling khadi products. Over the next 30 years, he set up 12 more khadi vastralays across small towns in Tamil
Nadu, gradually increasing the range of products and carrying on wholesale as well retail operations.

In 1991, Mudaliar set up a 25,000 square feet store named The Chennai Silks (TCS) at Tirupur selling textiles, silks
sarees and RTW garments. At that time, it was one of the biggest stores in the area, says P.A. Ravindhiran,
General Manager Sourcing & Operations. A store of that size in Tirupur 20 years ago (with economic reforms in
India yet to be introduced) had to be a rarity.

In 1996, Mudaliar opened a 45,000 square feet store in Coimbatore. Another store of the same size opened in
Erode in 1999, followed by a 125,000 square feet store in Chennai in 2001 and a 100,000 square feet store in
Trichy in 2004. Two stores opened on the same day in 2007 100,000 square feet in Karur and a second 80,000
square feet store in Coimbatore. This spate of aggressive expansion continued, with a 75,000 square feet store
opening in Coimbatore in 2008 (the third in the city), and TCS also started selling jewellery.

Another 125,000 square feet store was opened in Ernakulam in 2009, spread across nine floors. This was also TCS
first foray outside Tamil Nadu, and an indicator of their confidence in the brand, business model and market
conditions. A 150,000 square feet store is under-construction in Tirunelveli and is expected to open by end-2011.
This will take up TCS total retail space to over 870,000 square feet.

All TCS stores are located on high streets not one in a mall. Whats more, TCS owns all stores, including the land
under them, and has an in-house project division to identify suitable land parcels and carry out construction.
Surely, they must be using third-party agencies in some form? What about market/location analysis? Although we
do have an in-house research division, they usually work in conjunction with third-party agencies, especially for
customer preference surveys, says Ravindhiran.

The development of all stores has been self-funded, and Ravindhiran maintains that TCS might not look at external
funding for their short-term expansion plans.

This reminded me of my fathers generation, where debt was often considered bad. Leveraging, or using ones own
capital to generate higher returns while borrowing at relatively lower rates to fund income-generating assets,
cannot really be considered bad, can it? But whos to question convention wisdom, especially if its successful?

Ravindhiran claimed that he was not aware of the latest turnover of TCS, and was unable to provide the same by
the time this article went to press, but Asipacs research arm estimates that TCS currently does an annual business
of Rs.1150+ crores (excluding jewellery). Since the TCS stores covered in this article also sell jewellery, an ATD
calculated using these figures would be inaccurate; nonetheless, doing a business of Rs.1150+ crores from nine
stores is impressive. This figure will increase if we consider jewellery as well.

According to Ravindhiran, TCS has managed to diversify considerably within the apparel segment. Although silk
sarees is the core segment, supported by sub-categories like designer sarees and wedding silks, they also sell

cotton sarees, kidswear and western wear for men and women. Ravindhiran stated that in the near future, TCS is
planning to target all segments, age groups and income levels. Thats a mighty ambition, considering that even
national players like Lifestyle and Fashion@Big Bazaar operate at opposite ends of target income segments. TCS
caters to a wide variety of income levels but within a restricted range of merchandise, and how it manages to
expand along both axes needs to be seen.

With more than half of their merchandise designed and manufactured in-house and separate directors for
production and retail, Ravindhiran sees TCS as a trendsetter. One of the things that struck me was that they have
had an online sales platform since as early as 2000. Although it was slow to take off, it has been doing very well in
the last few years and now we have a large team to handle our online operations, says Ravindhiran. Online sales
in India have become commonplace only in the last 5-6 years, and I see this as one sphere where they have
indeed proved to be early adapters.

On manpower, TCS, RmKV and a lot of other regional players seem to have a similar model fresh graduates are
recruited as store staff and then trained, professionals with corporate experience are recruited for middle
management positions and then groomed for more responsibilities, and people who are either from the family or
who have been with the business for a long time normally occupy the top management positions. Ravindhiran
himself is related to the Mudaliar family and joined the business in 1996. Syed Mushtaq, GM Operations, has
been with the business for 30 years.

The third generation has now entered the business, handling segments like mens western wear and designer
sarees, and young blood has led to fresh ideas and strategies to take the TCS footprint further. We will be panIndia very soon, claims Ravindhiran. Funding (especially for expansion) is where most regional retailers seem to
stumble while on their expansion plans, and TCS does not appear to have that problem.

And then theres the precedent of Nallis. Its a bit like the four-minute mile. Athletes globally tried to run a mile
under four minutes for decades, and it was considered almost impossible. Finally, Roger Bannister ran it under
four minutes in 1954. Once proven possible, Bannisters record was bettered in the same year and another four
times in the next 10 years. Nallis has already set an example by metamorphosing from a regional to a national
player in a very short while. So, while a pan-India presence for TCS might take a while, I am not willing to bet
against it.

Mudaliar passed away a few years back, but when he sat in his 100 square feet Khadi Vastralaya in 1962, could he
imagine TCS will be one day where it is today a $250 million turnover company with a valuation of not less than
Shoppers Stops market cap of Rs.1710 crores? Unlikely, but he was fortunate to have lived long enough to see this
success. Only time will tell whether his successors will make a national giant out of The Chennai Silks, but they
sure are sitting on a solid launch pad.

Westsides website boldly claims that Westside is one of Indias largest and fastest growing chain of retail stores. I
wonder whether equity analysts and investors who give Trent a market cap of 4.3 times its annual revenues or
71.5 times its net profit are even aware of the existence of The Chennai Silks and RmKV, and the threat regional
retailers could pose to the highly overvalued national chains.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amit Bagaria is Founder Chairman of shopping centre development consultants and managers Asipac Group and
retail chain MEN & BOYS

Safety First Shopping Centre News, Sep-Oct 2010

Are 6.6 million daily shoppers safe in Indias shopping centres?

Almost 200 shopping centres (or malls) are already up and running across India and another 600 are in different
stages of development. Indian shopping centres get about 700 million annual visitors today and this is slated to go
up to 2.2 billion annual visitors by 2015. Thats a whopping 6 million daily visitors, 15% more than the entire
population of Singapore and more than three times that of Dubai.

Are we really prepared for this? What I am really worried about is that more than 80% of the current and planned
shopping centres in India fall woefully short of international standards in terms of safety and security. With lack of
proper safety standards and measures, Indian shopping centres have already started witnessing a number of
accidents, some even resulting in deaths or severe injuries to children and adults alike.

In 2008, a series of accidents affected the operations at a popular Bangalore mall and had forced the state
government and the city authorities to rethink safety standards to be implemented by all existing and upcoming
shopping centres / malls in the city. Even the mall in question has adopted some measures, but the question
remains, Why do we always take corrective actions and not preventive ones?

On 26th January 2009, Republic Day, a major fire accident was prevented at one of the most popular malls in
Bangalore. The fire started at the food court on the fourth floor. Thousands of people were evacuated in minutes,
and the fire was controlled. But will luck be on our side forever?

In May 2010, an early morning fire at the Shangri-La Heera Panna shopping mall at Oshiwara, Mumbai, highlighted
the fact that it is not enough for shopping centres just to have fire-fighting equipment. It is absolutely crucial that
the equipment is well-maintained and ready for use, and that staff are adequately trained on the use of the
installed equipment and other fire safety measures. A non-functional water-riser system, coupled with the badly
maintained fire-fighting equipment at the Oshiwara shopping mall, made it very difficult for firemen. It took them
nine hours to douse the fire. They had to bulldoze a basement wall, and 15 fire engines had to be deployed to
control the fire. As per the media, about 15,000 TV sets were stored in the basement, which was actually meant
for car parking. No water was stored in the static fire water storage tank.

When Indian mall developers are too keen to make a lot of mall from this business, why do they just copy paste
glitzy finishes from developed markets, instead of also copying public safety and hygiene standards?

Is it because there are no strict guidelines or proper safety norms? Or because there isnt anyone to monitor any
standards? Or simply because we just dont care.

After all, with a population of 1100 million, how does it matter

if 1100 were to lose their life?

Copying international safety standards will not serve the purpose, because most developed markets with successful
shopping centres have little experience of handling the large numbers of visitors that many popular Indian malls
get, especially on weekends. Managing such large crowds needs an altogether different approach, especially when
it comes to safety and security.

In India, parents lovingly let their children move up and down in an escalator, for the sheer fun of it and even enjoy
the sight with ultimate parental satisfaction; pedestrians simply walk aimlessly in parking areas, being blissfully
oblivious of where the pedestrian walkways are (if there are any), or where the driveways are.

The need of the hour is to put in place very strict safety guidelines. It is high time that we start working towards
creating our own safety norms for shopping centres, taking the necessary inputs from international standards and
experience.

The nine most potentially dangerous areas in the Indian context are:

1.

Pedestrian vs. Vehicular movement, inside and outside mall buildings.

2.

Lifts

3.

Escalators

4.

Parking Areas

5.

Fire Safety

6.

Health & Hygiene specially in Food Preparation & Service Areas

7.

Railings & similar fixtures around atriums and cut-outs

8.

Public Restrooms and other common facilities

9.

Children Play Areas and other Entertainment Zones

Lifts

In the 2008 case at the popular Bangalore mall, where an elevator crash landed three floors down after moving up
to the first floor from the lower basement, officials from the Karnataka Fire & Emergency Services Department,
who inspected the elevator, found that there were 13 people with an estimated total weight of 925 kgs, while the
elevator had the capacity to carry only 8 persons with only 544 kg weight.

Under such circumstances, why cant we have automated safety measures which ensure that the lift will not
operate if it is overloaded? Also, realizing that the average weight of the human on this planet has gone up in the

past few decades, the western world is making and installing lifts with a weight carrying capacity of 75 kgs per
person, while our malnourished nation continues with the age old norm of 68 kgs per person. Are we in Ethiopia?

We need a law that elevators in shopping centres and other public buildings should have a minimum weight
carrying capacity of 750 kgs, and each elevator should have latest safety approvals in USA, Japan and the EU. If
we can follow this principle for vehicle emission standards, why not for elevators? If five-star hotels can install the
latest generation elevators, why not shopping centre developers?

Escalators

At Varanasi in May 2008, eight-year old Annu fell to his death while stepping off the escalator on the second floor
of a shopping centre. Indians are not used to using escalators. So, shopping centre owners and managers need to
have volunteers to train people on their use, at least for six months after a new centre opens.

A number of factors affect escalator design, including physical requirements, location, traffic patterns, safety
considerations, and aesthetic preferences. The ability of the building infrastructure to support the heavy
components is also a critical physical concern. Furthermore, up and down escalator traffic should be physically
separated and should not lead into confined spaces.

The carrying capacity of escalators in a shopping centre must match the expected peak traffic demand, presuming
that passengers ride single-file. Staircases should be located adjacent to escalators, if escalators are the primary
means of transport between floors. It may also be necessary to provide an elevator adjacent to an escalator for
disabled persons, senior citizens and babies in prams.

Parking Lots

In India, there is usually only 1.5 to 2.0 parking spots per 1000 square feet of retail space, which is 30-40% of
what is required by international standards. Also, while parking lots in many shopping centres abroad have a welldefined pedestrian pathway, this is absent in India. Even ramp widths in Indian malls are sometimes inadequate.
Lighting, either too little or the wrong kind, is often a problem in parking lots.

Pedestrians should not be allowed in to parking lots. Only shoppers with parking ticket or pass
should be able to enter the parking lot from the main retail area of a shopping centre. There
should be proper signage to lead visitors to the right cluster of bays within parking lots.
How many times have you found yourself in a multi-level parking lot (or MLCP), hopelessly looking for your car,
was it on the 3rd or 5thlevel, was it F or D row??

The speed limit for cars and bi-wheelers within parking lots (and even other external places within the compound of
a shopping centre, where pedestrians could be walking about) should be restricted to 10 kmph.

Fire Safety

A fire hazard can be caused due to multiple sources of origin electrical wiring, cooking at food courts or
restaurants, carpeting at multiplexes, smoking, etc. Even though we have fire safety rules as per the National
Building Code, and have seen fire extinguishers hanging on walls or lying in some corner in malls, we are not sure
whether:

1.

The fire safety systems are in working order.

2.

The fire extinguishers are refilled as necessary.

3.

The sprinkler system works.

4.

There is regular maintenance.

5.

There is a Fire Safety Officer in the mall.

6.

Security personnel and other staff members are adequately trained on how to act in a fire emergency situation.

7.

Anyone really cares?

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) issued notices to 22 malls in Mumbai on 29 th March 2010, for violation
of fire safety norms. The civic body reviewed fire safety norms in 55 malls in the city and has asked 22 malls to
comply.

Regular unannounced mock fire drills need to be part of any fire safety system in a public building, so that public is
aware of what to do and the staff are always on their guard, apart from being adequately and practically trained.
Let us also put clear signage on each floor showing where Fire Exits are.

Unless we want another tragedy like Upahar cinema in Delhi or the school in Tamil Nadu. After all, like I said
before, whats 1100 fatalities in a country of 1100 million.

Railings & Similar Fixtures

The Telegraph, reporting on the death of a 6-year old boy in a Bangalore mall, who slipped four floors down
through the gap where the handrail ends, observed that this incident may have shed light on a possible lethal flaw
in shoppers havens, though it isnt clear if every mall has a gap between the escalator handrail and the floor
railings. Even the balcony railings of the mall have huge gaps, more than a foot high and about a foot and a half
wide. Some of these gaps, big enough for very young children to slip through, are covered by glass sheets but
many are open.

The Hindu, on 3rd July 2007, quoted a retired town planner, who said that such safety lacunae in buildings were
mainly because of absence of appropriate knowledge about the delicate issues of engineering and architecture,
among the town planners, who approve the building plan. Also to blame is the failure of constant inspections

during construction of such buildings and before issuing NOC. Even post-construction inspections were not
adequate.

Such accidents are also an eye-opener for parents who let their children run about the malls while they shop till
they drop.

Public Restrooms

In a study by Kimberly-Clark, 39% of survey respondents in USA feared picking up germs in a public restroom
more than any other place. Nothing can be truer than this in the Indian context. Foul odors, lack of supplies and
puddles on the floors can all be signs of improper maintenance. A modern washroom should have the following
features:

Chemical-lined dispenser bin in each of the ladies WCs.

Door-less entry (labyrinth entrance)

Sensor operated fixtures

In the Indian context, a health faucet (bum washer spray)

A countertop changing area

Hidden restrooms are perfect spots for robbers, because they are away from the view of other customers. Further,
they may become areas for people to gather, and in some cases even use drugs.

Other potential accident areas

Children Play Areas: Kids play areas should always be enclosed properly. The interiors of these areas should not
have any things with sharp edges.

Food Court: Have proper fire safety systems and garbage disposal systems. Ensure regular food-grade disinfectant
use to prevent bacteria. Regular pest / rodent control is a must.

Operators who do not dispose off garbage

properly need to be severely penalized by centre management.

Last, but not the least, it is high time for us Indians to realize and understand that, although providing safety and
security is an integral responsibility of shopping centre developers, owners and managers, as well as the retailers
who operate in the malls, it is also our individual responsibility to take ownership of our own actions.

Amit Bagaria is founder Chairman of three companies. Award winning Asipac Projects is Indias leading mall
planning, development and leasing consultant, which has conceptualized and marketed six of Indias 15 largest

malls. Asipac Mall Services is a new mall management company. Arus Retail has promoted Men&Boys, Indias
first retail chain exclusively dedicated to mens cosmetics. Amit has been a speaker or anchor at many Indian and
global events, co-authored a college textbook on planning and published several articles on malls and real estate.

Yesterday Once More Images Retail, Sep 2010

This is the first in a new series of stories initiated by Images Retail about successful local retailers spread across
urban India, who continue to expand and grow, despite tough competition from national (and in some cases, even
international) retailers. If you know about such a retailer in any Indian town (including Tier-II and Tier-III towns),
please send the name of the retailer and the city (with contact details, if available) to ab@asipac.com.

Our top management does not change every 1-2 years.

This emphatic statement by Niyas K.N., Chief

Information Officer and one of the owner family members of M.K.Retail, a `80 crore Bangalore grocery store chain,
sums up (according to Niyas) the key difference between local family-run retailers and national corporate chains.

The original M.K. Ahmed & Sons was founded in 1927 at Bangalores Mysore Road by Niyas grandfather, Late M.K.
Ahmed, who originally belonged to Kerala.

Although Ahmed died in 1947, his sons managed and grew the

business. Son Abdul Rahman, current Chairman of M.K.Retail, set up a kiraana store in Malleswaram in 1963. The
business was split up in 1983 between his five sons, and Abdul Rahman, inherited the kiraana shop on Bangalores
CMH Road.

In 1985, when Foodworld (then a JV between RPG Enterprises and Dairy Farm, part of the Hong Kong
headquartered Jardine Matheson Group, which also owns iconic grocer 7-Eleven) opened right next door with a
modern, international ambience and feel, Rahman soon realized that customers were changing their loyalty, and
converted his CMH Road store to replicate the supermarket experience. In the next 15 years, Rahman only opened
one more store and the two-store chain did a business of `4 crores in 2000.

In the early 2000s, Rahmans five sons joined the business in quick succession. They changed the name to
M.K.Retail and began expanding. The 17,000 square foot flagship store opened further up on the same road, in
2002. This store even stocks stationery, appliances, crockery and furniture. Today, M.K.Retail has six stores (the
seventh is opening soon) occupying total retail space of about 60,000 square feet.

Each of Rahmans five sons looks after a vertical.

While the oldest, Shakir, looks after finance, Anas runs

operations, Niyas handles IT, Shamim heads purchases and Hishan, the youngest, is responsible for marketing.
The brothers meet once a month to discuss strategy and take important decisions by consensus. There are no
external board members or advisors. Niyas says that MBAs cant so the job as well, as they are not flexible and
cant take quick decisions, as everything has to be analysed. He argues that their six family members (including
dad Rahman) in the business, is what differentiates them from the national corporate chains. We have a common
vision, mission and goals, he says.

This point could be easily argued. Future Group today has as many as seven Biyanis involved with different
functions within the group. In less than one fourth the time as M.K.Retail, Future Group has grown to over 1000
retail stores spread over more than 16 million square feet in 138 cities and rural locations.

So what really is the difference? Niyas argues that, while retail is the core business for his family, for many of the
corporate retailers, retail is just one of their businesses. According to him, the sale of eggs from his six stores
equals the combined sales of eggs from all 40 stores of a corporate-owned competitor. He is proud that M.K.Retail
has never shut a store. Each one of their stores is individually profitable and sustainable on a standalone basis.
Their focus is more on profitability than the number of stores.

Niyas reminds us that retailers such as Aditya Birla Groups More, RPGs Spencers and Reliance Fresh have been
forced shut several underperforming stores. He says that focus on growth rather than profitability is most likely to
lead to another Subhiksha story.

Subhiksha, founded in 1997 became a 150 store company by the year 2006. Then, with infusion of private equity,
and the irrational exuberance witnessed at the time across businesses and sectors, it grew unmindfully into 1600
stores by 2008. Within a year, the company went bankrupt and had to close down.

Another notable difference is that employees of national retailers stay with one employer for an average of less
than three years, while M.K.Retails employees have an average career span of 15 years in the organization. They
provide accommodation to most of their long-serving employees, which results in loyalty.

The most important difference is obviously in consumer perception or acceptance. From the consumers
perspective, while an average Food Bazaar stocks 40,000 SKUs, M.K.Retails flagship store has 60,000 SKUs.
According to Rasika Lumba, the wife of Kabir Lumba, Managing Director of department store chain Lifestyle, who
shops in M.K.Retail on a regular basis, their fresh produce is always very fresh, they stock good quality fruits,
vegetables and flowers, including exotic items, offer the widest varieties of mangoes in the season, they have a
wide range of Indian mithaais and gourmet foods, they sell unique and usually high-quality bakery products and
desserts, they are usually first to launch new branded food products in the market, carry a good range of crockery
and other household gifts and also carry an excellent variety of gifts for all budgets.

There could not be a better testimonial, coming from none other than the wife of a seasoned retailer, whose parent
Landmark Group also runs Spar Hypermarkets and Supermarkets in India under license from the Dutch retail giant
Spar. Founded in 1932, Spar had worldwide retail sales of `168,000 crores (28 billion) in 2009, from their 12,169
outlets occupying 65 million square feet in 33 countries.

One thing does strike me here despite operating in a low cost economy such as India, M.K.Retails average per
store sales of `13.33 crores equals that of Spars global average and is 80% higher than Spars UK average of
`7.41 crores per store, or 36% higher than the `9.81 crores average in Spars home country Netherlands.

Viney Singh, Managing Director of Spars Indian operations, says M.K. Retail is a classic example of a home grown
convenience store which has built up a reputation of catering well to the needs of the local catchment. Apart from
the convenience, I hear a lot of positives on their service levels. My Malayaali friends living in the Indiranagar area
tell me that they get a lot of their Kerala delicacies at M.K. Retail.

So, can M.K.Retail ever become a Spar? Maybe not, if one goes by the current ambitions (or plans) of the owners.
Niyas only sees M.K.Retail as a 30-store chain with a `500 crore turnover by 2027, the year when it celebrates its
100th anniversary.

The variety of products they offer is amazing. Their billing is super fast and there is always a pair at the counter,
one to bill and the other to fill up the bags, says Priya, another frequent shopper, The staff is always talking a lot,
but a supervisor keeps an eye on everything.

They are a good bunch of people. They try hard and they have a good offering, said a senior official of an
international supermarket chain who did not wish to be named.

Younger brother Shamim attributes superior merchandising to the fact that people in his sourcing team have been
with the retailer for 15-20 years, and so understand the consumer pulse, compared to national retailers, whose
sourcing managers keep changing. We do merchandising based on what customers demand, rather than based on
margins or profitability, he says, Many of our SKUs dont make money, but they still make business sense
because our customers want them.

What is unique about them is their personal touch with customers, something which is missing in modern
organised retail. They are faster in adapting to customer trends and habits, commented a senior official of one of
Indias biggest supermarket chains who also did not wish to be named.

Any retail experience can be measured on four counts, says Anas, how long one waits in the check-out queue,
the attitude of the shopfloor staff, the product mix, and pricing. As long as you succeed on these four fronts, the
rest takes care of itself.

One of their biggest weaknesses seems to be on the shrinkage front Niyas claims that they have 6% pilferage.
That translates to almost `5 crores per annum, a very high figure for any local retailer. Globally 2% is the norm,
and Spar averages less than 3%.

M.K.Retails seventh store at 4000 square feet will be the smallest in the chain. They are experimenting with this
size because they believe that this is the size that could be its growth engine for the future. A smaller sized store
can be replicated across several more locations, either on their own, or even through franchising. It is difficult to
set up 15,000 to 20,000 square feet stores, or even to run them, says elder brother Anas.

As things stand today, M.K.Retail does not see itself expanding beyond Bangalore and Chennai, a city it is eyeing
very closely. The metros offer far greater potential than smaller towns such as Mysore or Mangalore, they feel.
They also prefer to continue with the high street route, rather than malls, as they feel malls charge very high
rentals.

This 6-store chain is open to growing by acquiring other chains, even standalone shops. Although they have tried
many acquisitions, no deal has gone through, because of unrealistic valuation expectations of the owners,
according to Shakir.

M.K.Retail is open to external funding and could even consider an IPO for growth capital. However, despite several
offers from various PE funds, they have not really moved forward on the funding front. They are worried that
Nilgiris ran into trouble after the family sold its stake to private equity investors.

Nilgiris is a Bangalore headquartered supermarket chain, with 90 stores across South India. It was founded in
2005, near Ooty, in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. The flagship store on Bangalores Brigade Road opened in 1936.
Nine years later, in 1945, this store was converted into what was (perhaps) Indias first real supermarket. By
1982, it had a presence in five cities, including Chennai. In late 2006, UK based PE Fund Actis had acquired a 65%
controlling stake for `300 crores and started running the chain with professional management. In 2008-09, the
second year of operations run by Actis, Nilgiris made a loss of `22 crores. This led to a spat between the original
owner family (which still has a 35% stake) and Actis, which is ongoing for 18 months now, and has thus restricted
any further growth of the chain.

For family run businesses, survival is more important than valuation, says Niyas cheekily, We cannot afford to
operate on a business model that allows breaking even after two or three years. Each store has to make money
from day one.

M.K.Retail does not subscribe to Kishore Biyanis theory of is se sasta aur sasta kahi nahin. The cheapest price is
not important, according to them. Their experience across different neighbourhoods of Bangalore, with different
mix of SECs, shows that economy brands do not last long and premium brands are far more sustainable. Even with

their private labels, they have had better success with premium priced (and high quality) products than low budget
offers.

Future Groups value formats Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar together have more than 510,000 square feet of retail
space in Bangalore. Many other national retailers have between 100,000 to 250,000 square feet each. M.K.Retail
has just 60,000 square feet, but has same store growth of 30% per annum. Only time will show who is right, and
who will sell more eggs.

While M.K.Retail is definitely one of the most well known, trusted and successful local retailers in Bangalore, I must
say a few words about some other successful local Bangalore retailers. While I have already written about Nilgiris
(which may not even fit into the classification of local), here are a few others definitely worth a mention:

C.Krishniah Chetty & Sons is a 141 year old fine jewellery retailer with three outlets in Bangalore and one in
Hyderabad, with a turnover of more than `160 crores. Three family members run the business.

Favourite Shop Group comprises three retail formats Favourite Shop (multi-brand unisex apparel), FS Man (mens
apparel) and Soch (ethnic fashion), which together have 20+ outlets across South India and a turnover exceeding
`125 crores. The chain, run by a father and his two sons, is expanding rapidly (with new stores mostly in malls)
and will perhaps be the subject of an article in this series in the future.

Showoff is a unisex western fashion apparel MBO with five outlets in Bangalore and a turnover of more than `40
crores. Run by four brothers, this chain is now fast expanding, mostly in new malls.

Girias is a CDIT retailer with 20 stores across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, occupying more than 180,000 square
feet of retail space and a turnover of almost `500 crores. Four family members run the business.

Pai International, established in 2000, is a CDIT retailer with 25 outlets spread across Karnataka, with annual
turnover in excess of `200 crores. As many as seven family members run the business.

Mirrors & Within is a growing chain of beauty salons, run by two sisters and a brother. They have seven outlets
across Bangalore, including several major five star hotels and a flagship opening shortly in The Collection at UB
City.

Amit Bagaria is founder Chairman of award winning Asipac Projects, Indias leading mall planning and leasing
consultant, which has conceptualized and marketed six of Indias 15 largest malls, Asipac Mall Services, a mall
management company and Arus Retail, which owns Men and boyS, Indias first retail chain exclusively selling
mens cosmetics, skincare & hair care products, fragrances, which also provides specialized treatments for men.

NCR & Bengaluru to get Indias first new age

Shopping Centres Shopping Centre News, Mar-Apr
2011
The popularity and success of West Edmonton Mall (WEM) in Edmonton (population 850,000, Canadas sixth
largest city and the capital of Alberta province) is the story of how a handful of visionaries took an ordinary idea
like a shopping centre and turned it into a world-class destination. WEMs stores, attractions and services combine
to form the most comprehensive retail, hospitality and entertainment complex on earth. As the prototype for
mixed-use entertainment facilities, WEM, with a GLA of 5.3 million square feet, more than 650 shops, 100+ F&B
outlets, nine attractions and two hotels, is a place where people come to shop, play and stay. WEMs concept was
inspired by the traditional urban bazaars of Persia, where shopping and entertainment were plentiful and operated
in tandem, fulfilling a variety of consumer needs at a single location. At the worlds third largest shopping centre by
GLA and the largest fully operational one (the two largest, New South China Mall in Dongguan, China, and Golden
Resources Mall in Beijing, both failed), there is always something to do.

WEM has six of the worlds largest

attractions, including the largest indoor amusement park, largest indoor rollercoaster, largest indoor lake, largest
indoor wavepool, largest indoor bungee tower and the largest parking lot. With 29 million annual footfalls (seven
times the population of Alberta), WEM is the provinces No.1 tourist attraction. Almost 5 million annual visitors are
foreign tourists, mostly from USA. A study revealed that the direct incremental expenditure by visitors to WEM was
$12.9 billion. WEM generated incremental collection of $3.5 billion in federal taxes and $1.62 billion in provincial &
local taxes which the government would not have collected if the shopping centre did not exist. For every dollar
spent in WEM, $1.25 is spent by the same tourists outside the shopping centre.

SM Mall of Asia (SMOA) the worlds fourth largest shopping centre by GLA at 4.38 million square feet is
located 45 minutes away from the Makati CBD area of Philippines capital Manila. It successfully draws shoppers
and tourists from a 1 hour travel distance mainly due to its attractions. The San Miguel Coca Cola IMAX
Theatre has one of the worlds biggest IMAX 3D screens. The Directors Club Theatre has 30 La-Z-Boy seats.
SMOAs Olympic-sized ice skating rink, at 19,700 square feet, is the largest in SE Asia, and offers recreational and
competitive figure skating, as well as ice hockey. A sea-facing open-air Music Hall holds events, contests and
concerts. The 2nd World Pyro Olympics were held in January, 2007. The mall also hosted Lovapalooza 2, where
>5300 couples kissed in February, 2007, breaking a Guinness World Record. The SM Science Discovery Center
features a digital planetarium and a wide range of technology/science-themed exhibits. Other attractions include a
Life Clock (where visitors send emails to the future), Smart Media City (computer games including a full-body
motion-controlled game system), Transportation Nation (features the history and future of transportation, including
displays of Sinag, Wheelsurf and Segway), Nestle Spaceship Earth (a motion-game venue), Virtual Reef
(marine/underwater life), City Science (replicas of some of the worlds tallest skyscrapers, plus an interactive
earthquake experience), Digistar Planetarium (with 3D screens atop seats) and LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Center).
SMX Convention Center (part of the SMOA complex) is Philippines largest private exhibition & convention center,

with an area of 213,000 square feet and a capacity of 6000 people. Also connected via a bridge is a 775,000
square feet, 10 storey, office building known as OneE-comCenter.

Mall of America (MOA) USAs largest and the worlds fifth largest shopping centre by GLA at 4.2 million square
feet is located in Bloomington, a suburb located about 16 km from downtown Minneapolis, USAs 48 th largest city.
MOA is one of the top tourist destinations in USA, with 400+ events each year. The first shopping centre to mix
retail and entertainment, MOA is the model for combining signature retail and attractions to create an outstanding
entertainment venue. It generates nearly $2 billion p.a. in economic impact for the state. Of the 40 million annual
visitors, 16 million are tourists. The walking distance around one floor is 0.91 km. It has 6.9 km of store frontage.
There are 27 rides and attractions (including three roller coasters) in the seven acre Nickelodeon Universe FEC
located at its centre, which also has 30,000+ live plants and 400 live trees, some 35 feet tall. MOA has a 4.54
million litre Underwater Adventures Aquarium. The Metropolitan Learning Alliance offers courses in visual arts, law
enforcement, hospitality, retail management and business to high school students from four school districts. 8000
school groups visit MOA each year. Thousands are registered in the Mall Stars walking club. More than 5500
couples have exchanged vows at the Chapel of Love Wedding Chapel. More than 50 hotels have come up within a
10 minute drive since the mall was built.

It is often said by retail experts that the three most important factors for the success of a shopping centre are
location, location and location. The facts above show that this is not necessarily true. The worlds largest fully
operational mall (WEM) is located about 12km away from downtown Edmonton. With a population of just 850,000,
Edmonton is the 19th largest city in North America. Asias largest operational mall (SMOA) is located 45 minutes
away from Manilas CBD. USAs largest mall (MOA) is located 16 km from the downtown of that countrys
48th largest city and yet attracts 110,000 ADFs.

In todays day and age, it is very important for any large shopping centre to try and be everything for everyone. If
the kids are happy playing or taking rides, it will increase family visits and average dwell time, and the parents will
shop.

The two new Indian shopping centres that I am writing about in this article have many things in common one of
the most striking similarities being that they are not located in the typical highly populated catchments that most
of our retailers ask for perhaps this is one of the key reasons that they will succeed.

The Grand Venezia is a mixed-use development, with a GBA of 3.2 million square feet, located in Greater Noida, in
NCR, about 50 minutes from South Delhi, 35 minutes from Connaught Place and 20-odd minutes from Noida. The
project comprises a retail-cum-tourism centre of 1.2 million square feet, 700,000 square feet of offices, a 252-key
Hyatt Regency hotel, a 200,000 square feet Furniture City and 2200 parking spots.

Greater Noida is home to a large number of MNC campuses and plants, with a large number of residential projects
either already ready, or in the pipeline. However, from a typical shopping centre perspective, it appears to have a
relatively weak immediate catchment, especially for a shopping centre of this size.

When Pranay Sinha and Shilpa Malik of Starcentres (the people who had conceived and leased Select Citywalk mall
in New Delhi) visited the under-construction project for the first time, they were awed by the scale of the scheme,
and its distinctive Venetian architecture, but were also apprehensive due to the lack of an existing, immediate
catchment. People wouldnt, to their mind, choose a shopping destination over others (closer to where they lived),
because of its Venetian style or the canals, much as it was superbly impressive. We did not have a lot of hope, we
must confess, admits Sinha.

The shopping centres embedded in the two mega Venetian style casino hotels The Venetian, located in Las Vegas
and Macau, have not really succeeded.

Upon deeper reflection, the Starcentres team soon realised that the project did have a few things going for it. The
expressway from Delhi was high speed, and of great quality. Additionally, the site also fell on the Yamuna
Expressway (also known as the Taj Corridor). The F1 track was being built feverishly by Jaypee, not too far from
the project site. Above all, Sinha and Malik saw a very committed set of owners from India and USA, who were
determined to do all that it would take, to make the place succeed.

Thats when we asked ourselves, what could ensure that people do visit this place? says Malik. We looked at a
very fundamental but rather sad reality, that Delhi/NCR gets over 15 million domestic tourists and 3-5 million
international visitors per year, yet, the last time an attraction was created for the domestic tourist, was over 50
years ago (Rail Museum, Nehru Planetarium et al).

Delhi gets the highest number of domestic and international tourists in India. Besides being a gateway to Agra, the
Himalayas and Rajasthan, a stopover en route to Golden Temple, Vaishno Devi, Ajmer Sharif, Rishikesh and beyond
in the mountains, Corbett, Ranthambore, etc., it is also a new-economy business destination, with large trade fairs,
sporting events, fashion weeks etc. To top it all, Delhi is Indias capital, with over 2000 years of history. The Grand
Venezia project sat squarely in the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur tourist circuit, and with the new expressways and metro
connectivity planned, was a breeze of a drive away for the entire NCR population of over 20 million.

We had found our solution to making the place work, says Malik, we looked at several concepts that would be
attractive to tourists and finally homed in upon a modern aquarium, complete with shark tanks, mermaid shows,
and perhaps even penguins we had found our anchor, but we needed more.

Starcentres simulataneously worked on retail planning and concept/content development. They created various
zones (Go India, Go West, Go Global, Go Play, Go Fish, Go Eat and so on) and suitably amended the layouts and
circulation. They created 10 different zones, including a 150,000 square foot Aquaworld Aquarium, Dilli Haat with

Foods of India, World Haat with Foods of the World, etc., and put an 80,000 square feet indoor air-conditioned
amusement park on top of the mall, with roller coasters and other world-class rides. They connected with travel
agents, embassies, government departments, and many of them got on board with even more excitement. With
all of Indias 1.2 billion people now the target, Starcentres had hugely reduced the shopping centres dependence
on the 5 million strong Noida Greater Noida poplulation.

Popular brands from Delhi (Big Jos, Shakuntalam sarees and Sehgal Brothers), popular national players
(Pantaloons and Reliance), popular global brands (UCB, Esprit and Nike), F&B players, all came forward in support.
Brands loved the idea of having double-level Venetian mansions, of 3000-5000 square feet each, to showcase
themselves to all of India, and not just Delhi.

We are now running short of space, given the number of players coming forward from each category, and wish we
could have a Phase-2 to it as well. Says Sinha, we hope to start opening it this year itself, given the commitment
levels of the Bhasin Group (promoters), Shapoorji (contractors), Arcop (architects) and the professionals from
across the world involved in putting this giant together.

With just five percent of Delhis tourists, four visits per year from the SEC-A&B population of Noida and Greater
Noida and just one visit per year from the rest of NCRs SEC-A&B population, Grand Venezia can achieve 13.6
million footfalls per annum, or 37,260 ADFs, thus ensuring its success.

neoHub is a mixed-use development with a GBA of 2.65 million square feet located in Electronics City, Bengaluru,
about 12 minutes drive from Koramangala and BTM Layout, 20 minutes from JP Nagar and 25-odd minutes from
Brigade Road in Bengalurus CBD. The project comprises neoMall (a retail-cum-entertainment centre of 1.35
million square feet), neoClub (a sports & recreation club of 195,000 square feet), a 130-key Hyatt Place hotel,
about 29,000 square feet of small offices and 4150 parking spots. It is the heart of the 185-acre Neotown
Bangalore South, Bengalurus biggest planned integrated mixed use development, which comprises more than
4500 residential units, over 2000 of which have already been sold.

The 900-acre Electronics City, established in 1978, has 150+ companies, who occupy offices and labs of >23
million square feet, employ over 190,000 professionals and generate about eight percent of Indias IT sector
revenues of $88 Billion.

About 29,000 Infosys employees (including its top leadership) and 22,000 Wipro

employees work here.

More than 130 residential projects, with over 45,000 residential units, are either complete or under development
within a 20 minute drive time. The area is home to 18 educational institutions. Some of the citys best schools are
located within a 20 minute drive from Neotown. Bengalurus largest healthcare facility, Narayana Hrudayalaya
Health City, with five hospitals and 3200 beds, is located within 10 minutes.

With a GLA of 1.35 million square feet, neoMall will be the largest shopping centre in Bengaluru and the second
largest in the country (after the 1.8 million square feet City Capital Mall in Hyderabad). It was originally planned by
Asipac as a 430,000 square feet strip mall targeted at the 340,000 people who work in and around Electronics City.
When leasing started in January 2010, the response was fantastic. This led Asipac (and the promoters Patel
Realty) to increase the size of to 720,000 square feet in May 2010. By mid-August, Lifestyle, Spar, Max, Satyam
(10-screen cinema), Reliance Trends, Reliance Timeout and Reliance Digital were already on board as anchors.

Soon thereafter, the Government of Karnataka announced some infrastructure projects to improve connectivity to
Electronics City. Until October 2009, it took about 70 minutes to drive from Bengalurus CBD to Electronics City.
When a 10-km elevated expressway opened in February 2010, this drive time reduced to about 35 minutes. The
GoK announced that eight underpasses will be constructed between Vellara Junction and Silk Board Junction in
three years to make Hosur Road (the highway that connects the CBD to Electronics City) a signal free corridor.
Additionally, the entire stretch would be widened to a minimum of 100 feet. What this meant is that neoMall would
become accessible from the CBD within 20 minutes. Obviously, this was a fantastic development, as this shopping
centre would now become closer (in travel time) from the heart of the city than most other upcoming shopping
centres.

This led Asipac to think. It was an opportunity to turn neoMall into not just another mega retail centre, but what
could perhaps be Bengalurus most popular leisure and entertainment hub, says Vinay Shenoy, Asipacs head of
leasing and marketing. The GLA was increased to 1.35 million square feet, mainly by the addition of a second
large department store (now leased to Shoppers Stop), a mega furniture store and several leisure &
entertainment attractions (a looping roller coaster, a laser tag / paintball field, a ropes course, an obstacle course,
racing car simulators, a flight simulator, an OGOsphere, virtual sky diving, synthetic ice skating, rock climbing and
several sports simulators).

The 195,000 square feet neoClub (Indias largest sports & recreation club) was added. The 2.65 million square feet
mixed-use project was now named as neoHub. However, the character of the project would remain as an open-air
lifestyle centre, instead of becoming an enclosed shopping centre.

The attractions have been planned keeping in mind that we will not just get families with children, but also need to
cater to the team building activities and leisure needs of the huge population of IT professionals who work nearby
and are dying for things like these, says Cressida Smith, Asipacs leasing manager for neoMall, even the club has
been planned to accommodate 8000 members.

The (local) architect who was originally selected to design a 430,000 square feet strip mall, could not do justice to
this now mega project. A global search was undertaken. We were looking for similar large retail-led open-air
projects. On scouting several around the world, we discovered Cabot Circus at Bristol, a two hour train journey
from London. We were amazed the design of this open air shopping centre was exactly what we had dreamed
neoMalls to be like, says Smith.

The architects were immediately contacted. London-based Chapman Taylor is the largest retail architecture firm in
the world, with 400+ people in offices located in 14 countries, and has designed more than 200 retail & leisure
centres in 50+ countries. The firm has won 38 awards in the last three years alone, including 3 from ICSC
(International Council of Shopping Centres) and 8 from BCSC/other European shoping centre councils.

The developer and I air-dashed to Bristol. Our visit reconfirmed our belief now we definitely wanted the very
same architect who had designed this shopping centre. The man Chapman Taylors UK practice head Adrian
Griffiths had never worked in India and was reluctant. We sold the India growth story to Adrian. By the third
week of October, we had a new architectural design from Chapman Taylor scores of retailers who have seen it
have exclaimed that it is the best looking shopping centre in India. Some of the images are printed hereand any
reader will immediately realize what I am talking about.

With 14 leisure & entertainment attractions (including an FEC and the 10-screen cinema), neoMall is expected to
attract tourists from a 7-8 hour driving distance. The SEC-A&B population of this region (excluding Bengaluru) is
about 27 million. There is no doubt that the working population of Electronics City and surrounding areas will visit
neoMall at least once in three weeks, if not more often. If it is also able to attract the rest of Bengalurus SEC-A&B
population as well as 2.5% of the regions SEC-A&B population just once a year, neoMall will get 15.77 million
annual footfalls, or 43,200 ADFs.

While there are many differences between Grand Venezia and neoMall, there are also many similarities. First, the
differences. Perhaps the main distinction is that the former is an enclosed centre and the latter an open-air
lifestyle centre. While neoMalls primary catchment is wealthier than GVs, the opposite is true when it comes to the
secondary catchment. neoMall has many more anchor stores compared with Grand Venezia. neoMall and neoHub
have been designed by the worlds leading retail & leisure architects with experience in designing 2000+ such
projects, while GVs architects have done a handful of similar projects. Lastly, while GVs GLA is about 1.4 times
that of neoHub, it has only 2200 parking spots, compared to 4150 at neoHub.

So, what are the similarities? Even though both will rank amongst the 5-6 largest shopping centres in the country
for some time, they are both located at a distance from the heart of their cities. About 22-23% of the GLA of both
centres is dedicated to leisure & enterainment, compared to 9-12% in most Indian shopping centres. Both have
unique features, which have been very successful in shopping centres abroad, but are being attempted for the first
time in India. Both have a Hyatt hotel within the mixed-use complex. Both have been conceived and planned by
specialty retail planing firms who have already successfully completed and delivered arguably the best malls in
North and South India. What is perhaps most imporant is that both shopping centres are hoping to attract a large
number of outstation tourists.

Only time will tell whether these shopping centres will attract the visitors/shoppers that they are targeting, and
whether they will succeed. But what is more important is that both centres are taking the next step forward of
being distinctly different from the cookie cutter centres that India has got so used to seeing 4/5 level enclosed

shopping centres with a hypermarket/supermarket on the lower ground floor, a couple of anchors on the upper
ground and first floors and a cinema with food court on the top floor.

What really surprises me is that it is not the established mall developers (such as Inorbit, Prestige, DLF and
Phoneix) who are taking this step, but first time mall developers. Perhaps the established developers will pick up
the cue from here on, or perhaps more first-timers will do more unique projects. Whatever the case, at least Indian
consumers will finally get to experience world class shopping & leisure centres which will be refreshingly different
from what they have gotten bored of visiting. The best part is that the Indian shopping centre industry has finally
come of age.

Vision 2020 for Indian Shopping Centres Shopping

Centre News, Nov-Dec 2010
No one will question the belief that shopping centres should but perform well for at least 20 years, if not more. The
5.3 million square feet West Edmonton Mall (the worlds third largest mall by GLA) in Canada started 29 years ago
and still does relatively well it clocked 29 million footfalls last year. That may not be very high by Indian
standards (Express Avenue Chennai will probably beat the footfall number in its very first year), but is big for the
west.

Since there is no official global ranking, it is popularly believed that South China Mall in Dongguan at 7.1 million
Square feet is the worlds largest mall by GLA and The Dubai Mall at 5.5 million square feet is the second largest.
The GLA (gross lettable area) in this article is calculated as per Indian norms, by adding all covered circulation
areas.

The 3.6 million square feet Mall of America (the largest mall in USA) has been operational for 18 years and
continues to attract 40 million annual footfalls. The GLA of MOA will more than double, to over 8.0 million square
feet, with a major expansion project currently underway. Closer to India, the 1.8 million square foot Deira City
Centre in Dubai clocked more than 20 million footfalls in its fifteenth year. It is clear that no one is building
shopping centres for one, two or even 10 years.

By now, most Indian real estate developers at least in the larger cities have also understood that development
of shopping centres is a very different business model from development of residential buildings; as shopping
centres have to be run like a business, much like hotels, schools or hospitals.

It takes about five years for a new shopping centre anywhere in the world to witness peak footfalls Mantri Square
in Bangalore and Express Avenue in Chennai (both opened in 2010) may have defied this generally accepted fact,
although there is nothing yet to say that they will not have higher footfalls in 2015. There may be cases where a
mall hits its peak by the third year, and yet others may take longer than five years but exceptions do prove the
rule.

In India, it takes about four years to open a large shopping centre (GLA of >500,000 square feet), from the time it
is on paper literally, on a conceptual architectural plan.

So, any large shopping centre in India, where

construction has not yet begun, will only open by mid 2015 and will only attract peak footfalls by 2020.

Aha! This brings me to the topic of this article do we know who the consumers will be in 2020, or in fact, where
will they be? In other words, do we have a Vision 2020 for Indian shopping centres?

The results of the 2011 national census will tell us that Indias urban population is somewhere between 357 million
and 365 million; and is growing at between 2.6% to 3.6% per annum. As per a 21-month long research study by
McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), urban India will have 460 million people by 2020 and 590 million by 2030. On
analysing an urbanization study done by Ernst & Young (E&Y), it appears that urban India may have as many as
520 million people by 2020.

For this article, let us assume that the current urban population of India is 360 million and will reach 500 million by
2020. This means an addition of 140 million people. With almost negligible addition due to births, most of these
140 million will be migrants from rural India. In fact, the E&Y study does predict that 140 million will migrate from
rural to urban India by 2020. More than 60 million have already migrated in the last 10 years.

This means that, of the 500 million urban population in 2020, as many as 200 million (or 40%) will comprise of
those who have migrated from rural India in the last 20 years. Let us refer to them as MRIs, an acronym for
Migrants from Rural India.

Do we know what these MRIs will buy? Do we know where they will live? Have we planned our new mega
shopping centres as per their needs? Does our Vision 2020 take these MRIs into account? In fact, do we have
Vision 2020 at all?

Before anyone assumes that the MRIs will be economically weak and will thus not be mall customers, let me
remind you about two facts first, while the prices of farm produce are consistently rising, the same is not the
case with shirts or watches; and second, while Ambani, Biyani and Jagtiani still have to pay taxes on the small
profits they earn from their modern retail businesses, their country cousins in rural India enjoy tax free income.
So, get ready to welcome the real Indian consumer.

If I said all this during a talk at a conference, I would get stares, or even boos, like the ones I got back in 2005,
when I said that 75% of malls will fail, or the paper rockets that were thrown at me in 2006, when I said that
affordable housing was the need of the hour for Indian real estate. Was I correct on both occasions? But of
course!

Many people will scorn at what I am going to say now, but time will show them that I was right. Most shopping
centres have been planned for FAFOTOs or DPFBs. FAFOTO stands for Friends And Family Of The Owner. DPFB is
not a new export scheme of the Director General of Foreign Trade it stands for Developers Personal Favourite
Brands. This is exactly the problem. Most shopping centre owners/developers keep forgetting that they belong to
a very small minority after all, how many people in India make more than a billion rupees every year? If Indian
shopping centres were not really planned for FAFOTOs or DPFBs, why would a developer put a Rolls Royce car
showroom in a shopping centre which caters to the mid-market segment?

What is even worse is that sometimes, these owners go and hire expat mall managers or leasing consultants who
just dont understand (or refuse to accept) that the average Indian prefers eating at a Shiv Sagar or a Sukh Sagar
than a Subway or an Au Bon Pain.

It is really shocking to see the tenancy mix at many upcoming shopping centres across the country.

Adolfo

Dominguez, Aftershock, Energie, Grassroot, No Code, Pollo Compero, Robert Graham, Rosso Brunello, Shorty
Capone, Staccato, Ted Lapidus I wonder how many of the 200 million MRIs have heard of these brands. In fact, I
wonder whether a majority of the other 300 million non-MRIs have even heard of these brands.

I have no doubt that urban India will have total shopping centre supply of more than 670 million square feet by
2020, spread across 1900+ shopping centres. This is based on the fact that, Asipacs research studies of the
demand and supply of malls in five metropolitan regions NCR, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune which
comprise just 11.3% of the total urban population show a total supply of more than 83 million square feet by
2014 itself, spread across 191 shopping centres.

670 million square feet cannot be meant for just FAFOTOs. If the 1900 shopping centres were to have 1400
owners (with some owning two or more shopping centres), each owner would need to have 159,524 friends, in
order to sustain these shopping centres. With so many friends, even the Facebook site would probably crash.

In order for these shopping centres to survive, more than 70% of the total urban population will have to regularly
shop, dine and get entertained there. A majority of the new projects have to thus cater to the mass population,
and not just FAFOTOs or HNWIs; and I really doubt that the masses will be shopping at Energie or Pollo Compero.
In all probability, they will shop at Max, Reliance Trends, RMKV, Fashion @ Big Bazaar, Bata and Reliance Footprint.
And dine at Rajdhani or Sukh Sagar.

Why do most Indian shopping centre owners not lease a shop to Bata, but opt for Pavers England or Aldo instead.
Is it just because Bata is too traditional, and not sexy enough for their shopping centres image? After all, Bata is
also an international brand. Asipac chose Bata for Mantri Square, and that Bata store is doing business of Rs.45
lakhs per month. I wonder how many of the sexy footwear brands are doing that kind of business.

So what will the MRIs really buy? A majority of the men will buy denim jeans, as most rural folk tend to believe
that the best way to fit into an urban population is to don the blue. But they obviously wont be buying Diesel, or
for that matter, even Levis. Coming to the women MRIs thats a tricky one. I would bet on a majority opting for
traditional (ethnic) attire, even in 2020. Today, the trading density of ethnic fashion retailers across India is more
than double of ladies western fashion retailers. And this situation is not likely to change very soon.

I recall a discussion with Mark Ashman (Managing Director of Hypercity) almost a year ago, when he was Managing
Director of Marks & Spencer Reliance India, on the subject of ethnic versus western fashion. Mark was trying to
convince me that, just like Chinese women have completely adopted western fashion, so would Indian women. My
argument was simple when western fashion entered China, the Chinese women had one (two? three??) ethnic
dress design and four colours, so why would they not adopt to the various choices that were being thrown at
them? On the other hand, traditional Indian womenswear comprises hundreds of designs and scores of colours.
Weve probably got more variety of ethnic womenswear in our country than the whole western world put together.
Besides, another reality is that most Indian women (post the age of 30) are not as slim as Chinese women, and
therefore cannot carry western clothing as well as their Chinese counterparts.

Ive been consistently driving this argument forward in the media and at various industry forums in the past few
months, and am beginning to notice that many shopping centre developers are now taking Asipacs cue and
allocating far more space for ladies ethnic fashion. This is a welcome development, better late than never.

But this is not enough. Does the shopping centre industry realize how many people in India including thousands
of HNWIs eat Jain food or other restricted diets? When airlines such as Kingfisher and Jet, and hotel chains such
as Oberoi and The Leela, can cater to their needs, why not Indian shopping centres? Here, even the FAFOTO rule
does not apply, because Im sure most shopping centre owners have friends who eat Jain food.

Coming back to the MRIs, another big need will be educational institutes from English speaking classes, to
finishing schools, from training on various musical instruments to training on different martial arts and these can
very easily be located in the normally difficult to lease higher floors of a shopping centre. Experience in Thailand
has proven that such institutes increase the lady visitors dwell time in the mall.

In fact, Thailand reminds me about another very important point. No, its not about massage parlours. Indian
shopping centre developers should try to learn from the experiences of their counterparts Thailand, instead of
Dubai. Its true that Dubai has great shopping centres, but many of these are meant for tourists, which is not the
case in India. Also, the spending power and income distribution pattern in Dubai is very different from India.

Thailand, on the other hand, has a similar socio-economic distribution. Our eastern neighbour also has a similar
urban-rural divide. Migration from rural to urban Thailand is also as rampant as India. A very successful concept in
Thai shopping centres is the bazaar as we love bargaining, why not bargain at a mall? Asipac is incorporating
bazaars of 8000 to 15,000 square feet in our larger shopping centre projects.

Apart from what they will buy, developers and tenants also have to be mindful of where the new 140 million MRIs
are going to live. They will obviously not fit into the populated areas that retailers usually look for, before they sign
up in a new shopping centre project. The 40 million new households which can sustain 600 to 800 new shopping
centres will come up either next to newly developed workplaces, if vacant land parcels are available, or in underdeveloped suburban areas which are relatively inexpensive, have good access to the CBD and adequate ground
water.

Isnt this exactly what happened during the last 10 years at Gurgaon and Noida in NCR, Malad (West) in Mumbai,
Whitefield in Bangalore and Salt Lake in Kolkata? And arent several shopping centres thriving in these areas? So, if
we are building shopping centres for 2020 and beyond, we might as well build them where their customers will live.

Before ending, I must add that, according to the MGI study, the per capita disposable income in urban India will go
up from Rs.67,000 today to Rs.136,000 by 2020. So the total disposable income in urban India will go up from
Rs.24.12 trillion to Rs.66.64 trillion, a whopping 176% growth. Obviously, this is fantastic news for the modern
organized retail industry and for shopping centres. Atul Ruia will probably ask his team to double the rentals at
HSP again, even before he puts down this magazine.

By the way, the same MGI study also predicts that Bangalores per capita GDP will be 14% higher than the NCR
region, 43% higher than Pune, 58% higher than Mumbai, 70% higher than Kolkata, 85% higher than Hyderabad
and 91% higher than Chennai. So, it looks like Mumbai rentals are overpriced, whereas Bangalore is underpriced.
Uh, oh did I just hear that Market City Whitefield rentals were to treble?

Amit Bagaria is Chairman of Asipac Projects, Indias largest mall development and leasing consultants and Asipac
Mall Services, Indias fastest growing mall management company.

Why is India a MahaRashtra? Images Retail,

Nov2010
This is PART OF a series of stories initiated by Images Retail about successful local / REGIONAL retailers spread
across urban India, who continue to expand and grow, despite tough competition from national (and in some
cases, even international) retailers.

Big boys dont party in Aurangabad

As I write this story, the grandson rises in Maharashtra.

Yes, the third generation of Thackerays, Aditya,

photographer and poet, son of Uddhav, grandson of the legendary Bal Thackeray, is now in politics. So why is this
relevant to this article? Just like the regional Shiv Sena has given national political parties a run for their money in
the western Indian state of Maharshtra, so has Sapana Supermarkets beaten back the national retailers out of
Aurangabad.

V.B. Gupta, erstwhile schoolteacher and younger brother of Dr. D.B. Gupta (of pharma giant Lupin fame) started
Sapana Polyweaves in 1984, with a factory in Aurangabad to manufacture polypropelene mats (plastic carpets).
Today, Sapana mats are sold in 25 countries, including USA and most of Europe. Sapana has been the top Indian
exporter of mats in 2003-04, 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Inspired by Amway and another company in the Philippines, in 1993, Gupta started the business of multi-level
marketing (MLM) in Mumbai, under the name of Sapana Asha Kiran Network Marketing. His son Nishith Gupta,
then aged 24 and fresh with an engineering degree from Pune, was given charge of this business in 1999. Around
the same time, both father and son read the book Made in America by Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, the
worlds largest retailer. This was a game changer.

Obviously inspired by Sam Waltons success, and not very happy with the value proposition of the MLM business,
the Guptas decided to shut down the MLM business and use their experience in dealing with FMCG products and
consumers to start a food and grocery (F&G) retail business.

They chose Aurangabad because the mat

manufacturing plant was already there and real estate costs were a fraction of Mumbai. Young Nishith was put in
charge of the project.

The first Sapana Supermarket opened in 2000 at Samarth Nagar in Aurangabad. The next year (2001) saw the
opening of four more stores, at Bajrang Nagar, Ulkanagri, CIDCOs N3 Sector and Dashmesh Nagar. This was
followed by one new store every year for the next five years. The sixth store opened at TV Centre in 2002,

followed by Shahganj in 2003, Waluj in 2004, Beed Bypass in 2005 and Aurangpura in 2006. The 10 stores (four
owned four on rent) together occupy about 22,000 square feet of retail space. At an average of 2200 square feet
per store, the format is more of a convenience store, even though it carries the name Sapana Supermarket.

Since then, there was a four year long hibernation. Nishith explains this was because several national chains
opened their convenience stores in Aurangabad Sapana saw high staff attrition across levels, rentals in the city
went up, there was a drop of up to 20% in some store sales, as customers wanted to try the novelty experience
offered by these national chains. We served as a training ground for many retailers in and around Aurangabad,
says Nishith.

The mahabharat battle lasted less than three years. All seven stores of Subhiksha shut down. The 16,000 square
feet Vishal Megamart closed in February 2010 after operating for 3 years. Spencers has closed all five Spencers
Daily neighbourhood stores and is concentrating on its hypermarket format there is one Spencers Hyper at
Aurangabad. Reliance Retail has shut two of the five F&G stores it had opened. Aditya Birla Retail only set up
three MORE stores and one More Megastore in Aurangabad.

In the last two years, the honeymoon is over and customers have started returning to Sapana. The national chains
did not survive because they were paying as much as 10% of revenues as rentals in the F&G business, gross
margins are just 14-16% and one cannot afford to pay more than 3% as rent, commented Nishith Gupta. The
smile is back on his face and he is now actively looking at expanding Sapana once again, although in a cautious
manner, so as to not make the same mistakes the national chains did. Although Sapana had also planned to open
a 40,000 square foot hypermarket, it has shelved those plans as of now. Since the 10 existing stores are located
within 1 km of any point in Aurangabad, the home base is pretty well covered and future growth is likely to come
from neighbouring cities such as Nashik and other smaller towns across Maharashtra. We had no pressure to
grow, he says, we only opened a store if and when we got the right place at the right price. Perhaps, the MBAs
and CAs at the national chains need to learn from this young engineer. According to Nishith, many prime retail
properties in the city are vacant as they are asking for too high rentals.

Sapana has a topline of `19 crores, with an ATD of `720/sft/month, about 20% lower than the national average.
Not all 10 stores are performing to capacity while the N3 store does business of `29 lakhs a month, Shahganj is
still struggling at `5-6 lakhs a month. Nishith says that even the N3 store was doing just `5-6 lakhs a month just
four years ago. He sees Sapana as a 30-35 store regional chain by 2015. He is exploring several possibilities to
raise funds for expansion.

In early 2008, Sapana was in talks with external investors and larger retail players for a tie-up or stake sale.
Although Sapana did get some offers, the valuations were very low, as a result of the financial market meltdown in
2008. One player with whom talks had progressed was Spinach. It was a godsend for Sapana as, earlier this year,
Wadhawan Retail shut down all 45 of its Spinach stores.

Nishith believes that Sapana has most of the systems of a large company. Dont forget he learnt the tricks of the
trade from Sam Walton himself so what, if it he didnt follow it by the book. Nishith is particularly proud of his
9600 square feet DC (distribution centre). Its a true DC and not a warehouse, as nothing stays there more than
48 hours, he says, purchases and logisitics is the backbone of retail business. Shrinkage is less than 1%, much
better than industry standards. In fact, the level of shrinkage plays a big role in staff appraisals, especially of store
managers. Sapana also puts a lot of emphasis on the assortment and range of products, as well as pricing.
Nishith feels this is another area in which the national players are going wrong. Although Nishith believes that his
stores have a great layout, some of Spanas regular customers feel that the stores are overcrowded.

Retail has been thriving across India without the organized sector for decades, says Nishith Gupta, organized
retail will find it very difficult to survive in India. Was I wrong in comparing this young Maharashtra warrior with
Shiv Sena?

Jai Maharashtra or Jai Hind?

We move on from the 1.5 million people strong Aurangabad to its three times larger regional big brother, Pune
Indias seventh largest city.

If you live in Pune, you cannot ignore Jaihind, especially if you are a man. Every man that I spoke with in Pune
knew about this retailer such is its popularity. Even men such as Kabir Lumba, Govind Shrikhande, Vishnu
Prasad, Gaurav Mahajan and Arun Sirdeshmukh should not ignore Jaihind.

In 1980, Jivraj Jain started a 1000 square foot retail store for mens clothing by the name of Jaihind Collections
(Collections has now been dropped from the trade name, which is now just Jaihind) in Punes Laxmi Road, in the
retail hub of Sadashivpet. In 1988, the store quadrupled in size. After another nine years, in 1997, the store grew
to 9000 square feet. Fast forward to seven years later, and you had a sprawling 28,000 square feet four-level
department store, selling mens readymade apparel, fabrics, ethnicwear, sunglasses, perfumes, ties and belts, and
even offering customized tailoring.

By this time (2004), Jains nephew and current MD, Dinesh Gupta, was running the business, assisted by his two
younger brothers, Pravin Jain and Vinod Jain. In the same year, Bollywood icon Salman Khan launched Jaihinds
Mewar section (department) dedicated to selling ethnic and bridegroom apparel. By 2007, Dineshs son Preshit
also joined the business. Addition of young blood led to improvements in systems and processes. It also led to the
opening of the second store of 15,000 square feet at Karve Road in Kothrud.

While many national retailers were busy in shutting down or downsizing their operations in 2009, Jaihind opened its
third store of 20,000 square feet at Aundh. Footwear was now added as a category. The fourth store of 22,000
square feet opened in early 2010 at Pimpri. Gupta adds that Jaihinds business has not been affected with the
advent of the national retail chains, or large department stores.

Recently, the family has also diversified into real estate development and Vinod Jain looks after this business.

Jaihind is planning to open two more COCO (company owned company operated) stores in Pune within 12-15
months. One of these may be at a mall. It is also planning 4-5 new FOFO (franchisee owned franchisee operated)
stores (with an average size of 15,000 square feet) in 27-30 months, at places such as Nagpur, Aurangabad,
Kolhapur and Nashik. Our brand is very well known over a 200km radius and we want to capitalize on this, says
Gupta, Jaihind serves 1.4 million customers per year, including more than 100,000 NRIs.

A little more than half the business comes from readymade apparel, with a majority contributed by formalwear.
Jaihind has a department named JC Studio especially for clubwear, eveningwear and partywear and this business is
also growing. Brands like Colour Plus, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe, Zodiac, US Polo, Allen Solly, Pepe, Levis, Mufti
and Spykar are the most popular.

About 21% of business comes from fabrics Jaihind is Raymonds second largest retailer in the country, in the MBO
category. 5-6% of the business is made up of ties, belts, footwear, sunglasses and fragrances. The average age
range of the customer is 20-40. Almost 40% of the men shop alone that is, without an accompanying female
companion.

Each of the stores either has a floor or an area dedicated to the Mewar ethnicwear department. These departments
have catwalk ramps with focus lighting, to help soon-to-be-married bridegrooms to see how they will look on their
big day. Hmmm, I wonder how many Pune brides walk the ramp before their big day. According to Gupta, there
are now weddings during eight months out of 12. Ethnicwear contributes to about 22% of Jaihinds topline. The
retailer is also contemplating the possibility of opening Mewar EBOs on a standalone basis. It has recently tied up
with the famous Bollywood ethnic fashion designer Shahid Amir to launch a signature collection.

Gupta sees the scope for a national retail chain dedicated to men. He is ready to tie up with a national player to
open 100+ stores. Other players in this category who come into immediate recall are Ahmedabad based Jade Blue
(which has seven stores in five cities of Gujarat, as well as Indore in Madhya Pradesh) and Prestige The Man Store
(which has two stores in Bangalore). So are men finally getting their rightful 50% share?

`30 crores turnover from retailing 25 paise paperclips

Six years before Jaihind Collections was set up, a couple of blocks away, Kishan Chand Arya set up a small 225
square feet stationery products shop named Venus Traders at Punes AB Chowk (not named after the author, nor
after Amitabh Bachchan), where many books and stationery shops already existed. Aryas family already owned an
established stationery manufacturing business by the name of Sudarshan Stationery.

Nine years later, in 1983, the store size more than doubled to 500 square feet. In 2002, the Pune Stationery and
Cutlery Association gave the Best Shop Award to Venus Traders. In the early 2000s, Aryas nephew, Surendra

Karamchandani took charge of the business and in 2004, he opened a 6000 square feet shop on Punes famous
Fergusson College Road. Surendra says he was inspired by William Penns first shop in Bangalore. This new store,
aptly named Venus Traders Stationery Superstore, stocked more than 25,000 SKUs.

While Venus sold IT items such as laptop computers and digital cameras from this superstore, after a couple of
years, it decided to stop selling IT products, as most people preferred to buy these from specialized shops.
Staples carries 50 types of laptops, whereas we only had four, said Surendra Karamchandani, so we decided to
concentrate on our core business of stationery we have a much wider range of school, college and office
stationery than Staples. He claims that no other shop in India has the depth of merchandise that Venus has in
stationery products. The range of merchandise includes a 25 paise paperclip to a high-end pen costing `15,000.
The range includes almost 200 art related books, which bookstores dont carry. Venus decided to sell these books
for the benefit of many of its artist customers, who frequent their stores to buy art materials. Venus does not retail
any other types of books.

In 2006, the Pune Municipal Corporation gave an Ideal Dealer Award to Venus Traders. In the same year, the
original store at AB Chowk expanded to 3000 square feet and a third store of 1800 square feet opened in Nucleus
Mall in the Camp area. Two years later, the fourth store in the chain, measuring 1600 square feet, opened in
Kothrud. Except the FC Road store which is owned, all other shops are in rented properties. A fifth store has been
booked at Eon Matrix Mall coming up in Kharadi one of the 300-odd malls coming up in Pune.

Surendra believes in the mantra that margins are secondary and the best choices must be offered to customers.
His younger brother Pramod and son Vinod are now part of the business. The manufacturing business (Sudarshan
Stationery) is now with another faction of the family, but Venus retails their products also. Venus is proud to be a
member of the Council for Fair Business Practices (CFBP), whose membership is only granted after strict reference
checks.

Venus does business of `30 crores from total retail space of 12,400 square feet, yielding an ATD of a healthy
`2106/sft/month. About 25% of the business comes from supplying to offices and colleges. The ABV (average bill
value) is `325. Venus uses Retailware software and is happy with the product. Unlike most other retail categories,
average sales on weekdays are higher than on weekends. Surendra attributes this to the fact that offices are
closed on weekends.

On expansion plans, Surendra says that they get many franchisee enquiries from cities like Nashik and Kolhapur,
but they are not very clear about whether they want to adopt the franchising route for further growth. A couple of
years ago, the `530 crores stationery manufacturer and publisher Navneet Publications approached Venus to set up
a JV to open more than 100 retail stores across India, but this proposal did not fructify due to differences in
business projections. Recently, Navneet has set up retail outlets named FundoO (currently in Ahmedabad and
Surat) to market a range of innovative learning products catering to the segment of kids aged between 3 to 10
years.

Is Coke interested in buying a stationery business? Just kidding. Au revoir till next month.

Amit Bagaria is Chairman of shopping centre development consultants and managers Asipac Group and retail chain
Men and boyS. If you know about such a retailer in any Indian town (including Tier-II and Tier-III towns), please
send the name of the retailer and the city (with contact details, if available) to ab@asipac.com.