Mallz 99 Dollar Stores opens franchise opportunities in India

Mallz99 chain of dollar stores has been launched in India as a fore runner to the retail boom in the country with the Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco entering the Indian market. Their first concept store opened in South Delhi in Malviya Nagar last week. The store model has been derived from the US concept of ‘Dollar Stores’, which operate throughout the US and provide value for money to their customers. The dollar store concept is apt for the Indian consumers who are value shoppers and rarely get to travel abroad now have access to imported products in their neighborhood.

Mallz99 offers a wide range of imported products that are priced at Rs. 99/- (approx. US$ 2), which is the value proposition and has a wide appeal for the Indian middle class segment of the market. The products are imported from U.S, Thailand, China, Taiwan, H.K, Europe and Malaysia. There are over 1500 products available ranging from gifts, cosmetics, household, plastics, hardware, automotive, fashion accessories and jewelry, artificial flowers, candles, toys, perfumes, electronics, kitchenware, glassware etc. The store adds new products on a weekly basis to make revisits to the store more exciting and interesting for shoppers. “ Shopping Unlimited ” is the chains punch line that actually is driving hordes of customers into the outlet daily. A online shopping model is also being developed at their website: www.mallz.biz for customers to order from their desk. The expansion blueprint of the chain is to roll out 200 stores of 2,500-50,000 sft space company owned and franchised over the next 4 years as part of their expansion strategy in India. The retail model is being implemented from mini-metros before graduating to the metros with retail formats of mini to hyper mallz stores. The expansion plans will be implemented in November. The company has international retail partners from the U.S and Hong Kong waiting on the sidelines seeking to invest as soon as the government opens up the FDI restrictions in the retail sector. The Indian branded retail segment is estimated at Rs. 10,000 crore which currently accounts for 4% of business rest is in the unorganized sector with the pop & mom type of operations. The total size of the domestic retail market is estimated at Rs. 2,50,000 crore. The company strategy is to offer a mall shopping experience in a bigger pop & mom operational format which is the larger chunk of the unorganized sector to enable it to achieve horizontal expansion in the country and focus on the 96% of the retail market potential by bring part of it into the organized sector.

International franchise consultants are being retained to guide the company through the complete franchising route, franchise selection, technical know-how and putting systems in place for effective management of the operations. 24 financial and investment partners are being bought into the project to fund the expansion of the business. The company also has future plans to take out a public issue after 3 years to fund its future expansion plans. The company chose not to enter the venture capital market for its funding requirements in order to maintain control over equity. The international retail partners will buy into the company for future expansion funding when the FDI restrictions on the retail sector are lifted. The future of Indian retailing looks bright.