For Biyani, small is beautiful now

Kishore Biyani, touted as he country's retail king, is looking at rolling out thousands of small stores, which wll act as a distribution channel for his consumer products.

Currently, Future Group has 600 small stores which are between 600 to 1200 sq ft and planning to set up 3,000 more such stores in next five years.

"We already have 250 large stores of Big Bazaar. Now we are focusing on small stores. About 70% of merchandise in these stores will be our own products," Biyani said at India Retail Forum here.

All its small stores such as KB's Fair Price will be rebranded as Easyday stores, he said. Since Niligiris operate under franchisee model, it will contiue in the same brand, he said.

Interestingly, Biyani's upcoming acqusitions such as Sangam Direct and Heritage Fresh all have small stores in South and North India. Aditya Birla Retail with which he has held talks to buy it out also mostly small stores.

Biyani also said they are looking at the  opportunity of managing fair price or ration shops across the country. 

His group manages 5,000 such ration shops in Rajastan and in talks with Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh governments to give a face lift to local ration shops there.

"We have introduced 250 SKUs designed for such ration shops in Rajastan. Imagine 5,000 stores into 28 states, the opportunity is huge," Biyani said at the India Retail Forum here.