To address the problem of running too many brands and overlapping business operations, two of the biggest retail players, Spencer’s and Future Group have decided to reduce the number of brands and store formats.
Future Group is working on integration of two of its group companies, Home Solutions Retail India Ltd (which runs stores such as E-Zone, Home Town, Electronics Bazaar, Furniture Bazaar, Collection-I) and Big Bazaar, its hypermarket chain.
As per ET, E-Zone and Home Town would continue to run as it is while all other smaller formats would be merged with Big Bazaar. The move may then give Big Bazaar a bigger scale before it comes out with its own IPO.
Similarly RPG Group’s Spencer’s Retail is reducing its number of retail formats from 5 to 2 to avoid confusion among customers with multiple formats.
As a result of this restructuring, Spencer’s Super, Spencer’s Daily, Spencer’s Express and Spencer’s Fresh would be rebranded as Spencer’s while the hypermart would continue to run under the name ‘Spencer’s Hyper’.
The move means that there would be 373 Spencer’s and 27 Spencer’s Hyper in India and all stores would have a uniform look, merchandise and service levels. source