New Delhi: Some buzz from the the retail space. Pantaloon Retail is reaching out to small and mid-sized business houses across the country for a larger supply base.
Stalls at a fair held in Ahmedabad are baby steps by small and medium sized entrepreneurs of Gujarat and Rajasthan to reach out to millions of Indians through Pantaloon Retail.
They are participating in the 'Saathi' initiative, which will help them find shelf space in malls of Pantaloon Retail like Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Pantaloons.
MD at Pantaloon Retail India, Kishore Biyani says, "The whole idea is to build up a quality vendor base, see that we buy at the right price and that will benefit the customers ultimately."
Over 3000 vendors from across Gujarat and Rajasthan have expressed interest in the project. Of these, 500 were shortlisted and 350 of them are taking part in the fair held in Ahmedabad. Pantaloon expects to notch up deals worth Rs 100 crore over the next two days. The retailer has already inked deals with leading vendors like Amul and Rasna for their products.
MD at Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, BM Vyas says, "Growth will be coming in two ways, one is consumer shifting from traditional outlets to modern stores and second growth will be increase in consumption itself, that is frequency of buying and at a time itself. All this put together should give us reasonably good growth."
Over the coming weeks, Pantaloon plans to carry this experience to 10 cities across the country including Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore. The initiative will help small vendors sell directly to the consumers, and will give Pantaloons better margins and streamlined sourcing. It will also help the retailer fortify itself before Reliance's mega malls spring up across the country.
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