Raymond expects small town mini stores to contribute around 20% of its retail sales

Raymond expects around 20 per cent of its textile and apparel retail business in India to come from small towns, where it is opening 'Mini TRS' stores catering to aspirations of the people , a company official said.

The company, which has recently achieved the target to open its 200th 'Mini TRS' (The Raymond Shop), has plans to add around 600 more in its network in tier IV, V and VI towns.

"For the TRS channel, we see, these stores, Mini TRS which we are opening up, to contribute around 15 to 20 per cent of the revenue," Raymond Director Retail Mohit Dhanjal told PTI.

As per its retail strategy, Raymond has identified around 800 small towns having population above 50,000 to sustain a store and tap the potential through Mini TRS.

Raymond has a network of around 880 stores including Mini TRS, in which 820 are on franchise model and rest 60 are owned by the company, the Raymond Shop Channel.

"In the next 6 months, we plan to open another 100 stores and then to take our total count to 1,000 and after that for next 2-3 years, we would plan to open 100 stores every year," he said.

The regular TRS has a spread of over 2,500 sq feet, while Mini TRS format is optimised in around 800 sq feet, he added.

All these new stores coming out are on franchise model and the company has brought down the investments for the TRS format stores.

According to him, these small towns have "lot of aspiration for branded clothes" besides "growing spending power".

Raymond is also working on omni channel retail system by integrating online with offline. It operates around 50 stores in overseas markets as the Middle East, Bangladesh.