Piramyd to open more TruMart outlets

Upbeat with its TruMart experiment at the Piramyd Megastore here, the Piramal-controlled group opened two more TruMart outlets in the city and plans to open 10 more by February 2007.

The first TruMart, an upgraded version of the next-door kirana store, was opened a few years ago as part of the Piramyd Megastore.

"We found the experiment to be extremely successful and concluded that Nagpur can take in still more such stores,"Nandan Piramal, executive vice-chairman of Piramyd Retail Limited, told reporters here.

The two new TruMart stores have been opened at Jagat Millennium near Law College Square and besides Pritam Bhavan in Wardhaman Nagar close to where Big Bazaar also has its second largest outlet of the country.

Piramal said the stores would be offering everything under the food, home and personal care (FHPC) segment of retailing along with fresh fruits and vegetables.

"We will be studying consumer behaviour and storing preference data to offer some unique customised packages to each individual customer," he said.

The stores will also offer points and cash discounts from time to time. "The idea is to bring the localised flavour that exists in the normal mom-and-pop stores where the owner of the store knows each customer by their name," he said.

The stores will also offer around 15 local products to add local flavour.

"We have plans to open 10 to 12 such stores here by the end of February 2007 and take the tally to 45 for the entire country by March-end," said country head of Piramyd Retail Limited Upamanyu Bhattacharya.

The new stores cover an area of 2,500 square feet and will have close to 6,000 brands in over 100 products. Each store will have a staff strength of around 20. Piramal said organised retail in the country was still around 3 per cent and there was more growth to be had.