Croma, the consumer durables and infotech (CDIT) chain of Tatas, is getting into a new retail format to offer best-selling products from its stores. It also plans to set up shop-in-shops inside Star Bazaar, the hypermarket chain of group company Trent, to boost revenues.

 

The stores under the new format are called ‘Croma’ and will be of 4,500-6,000 sq ft in size. The chain already has Croma Megastore (8,000-12,000 sq ft) and Croma Zip (less than 3,000 sq ft).

 

The chain plans to set up eight stores under the new format in the coming months, including three in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali in two months. It already runs two such stores in Bangalore and Pune.

 

“We cannot get 8,000 to 12,000 sq ft space in all cities and sometimes are not sure about opening of malls, but we do not want to miss these localities. These stores have better per sq ft realisations. The initial stores are doing exceptionally well,” said Ajit Joshi, chief executive officer of Tata Sons-owned Infiniti Retail, which runs Croma stores.

 

Croma also plans to set up shop-in-shops in Star Bazaar.

 

“Big brands do not necessarily have the kind of width and breadth they have abroad in India,” Joshi had told Business Standard in a recent interview.

 

“One golden rule we followed from day one is that we do not repeat SKUs (stock keeping units) in our stores. If we display one particular 32 inch model of a television, that is it. We will not put one more set on display. That forced us to reduce the size of our stores,” he added.

 

The CDIT market in India is estimated to be around Rs 1,00,000 crore and organised players account for a fourth of the total pie.

 

Set up in 2006, Croma runs 64 stores and posted revenues of Rs 1,540 crore for 2010-11. It expects to achieve break-even at the company level by this financial year.

 

Out of Croma’s total revenues, 55 per cent comes from IT products and accessories.