Reliance Digital plans own label

Reliance Digital, part of Reliance Retail Ltd, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), plans to introduce its private label brand within six months.

Speaking to reporters at the launch of the first store of Reliance Digital in Tamil Nadu, Ajay Baijal, president and chief executive, said the private label will be introduced within six months to study the market and then the segment will be ramped up by next year. The private label of Reliance will include accessories, IT products, consumer electronics and home appliances. Baijal also mentioned that there are inventory risks and expenditure in the form of after-sales infrastructure for private labels. “But there are also gaps in product specification and market price. Hence, there are ample opportunities to differentiate,” he noted.

The two-year-old company has also started two small-format stores called Reliance Express at Ghaziabad and Bangalore a month earlier. The stores are an average of 2,000 sq ft in size and primarily sell IT and imaging products. “We are in the experimental stage, to know the viability of such stores and will expand after getting the input,” said Baijal.

Reliance Digital’s foray into small format stores follows the Tata Group’s Croma’s launch of such stores under the name Zip. Croma also has its own brand of private labels and has recently planned to ramp up the product categories in the segment.

It also plans to expand to 150 large format stores by 2012. “We have a ratio of 60:40 presence for our stores in metro and non-metro. We will maintain it for future expansions also,” he said.

Reliance Digital will also increase the number of iStores, the exclusive ones which supply Apple products, to around 55 from the present 10.