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As part of its growing thrust towards the speciality retail segment, retail chain Shoppers Stop is planning to open an additional 69 Crossword bookstore outlets in the coming four years.
The Raheja group firm is also planning to open its first Mothercare store and Hypermarket retail outlet in the city in the coming few weeks. 8220;We see great scope in the speciality retail segment and as part of our expansion activities we will be opening 69 Crossword stores across the country increasing the network to 100 stores by 2009,8221; Shoppers Stop CEO B.S. Nagesh said.
Crossword, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shoppers Stop, is a retail chain of 31 stores engaged in the business of retailing of books, music and stationery. The company had earmarked an investment of Rs 75 crore over the next four years for expansion of Crossword stores in the country. The new stores would be a mix of standalone and Shoppers Stop integrated stores.
Meanwhile, emulating the succesful value retailing model of Pantaloon, Shoppers Stop will soon be opening its first hypermarket large discount stores in Mumbai. These marts would have a range of products from vegetables to white goods. 8220;We will soon be opening our first hypermarket in Mumbai. We plan to take this concept to four other cities like Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore this year,8221; Nagesh said.
Nagesh said that the company would consider a pan-India spread for its hypermarkets after evaluating the performance of these four stores. The company is also planning to increase the number of Shoppers Stop stores from the existing 19 to 39 stores in the next couple of years.
Shoppers Stop has an exclusive franchise agreement with Mothercare PLC of the UK to open Mothercare stores in India and plans to open over 40 stores in the next five years, Nagesh said.
