DMart has to add greater number of stores to grow faster, says CEO Neville Noronha
DMart has no plans to enter wholesale retailing as of now, but we are very clear that we are a first grocery format and will work harder to add more stores to grow faster, says Neville Noronha, CEO of Avenue Supermarts which owns the DMart retail chain and has been lately grappling with slower growth rates. Retailers have also been recently rushing in to open value-format stores which have impacted DMart’s apparel and general merchandise segment. Interestingly, retailers are opening shops close to DMart stores to take advantage of the huge footfalls that the discount format attracts.
In an exclusive interaction with ET, Noronha said: “We aren’t growing at 30-40% like earlier with the base effect kicking in. We need to add a significantly greater number of stores than we are adding if we need to grow faster. Our model of buying stores or having standalone stores has inherent limitations and slows us down.
Shoppers come to our stores to buy groceries. While they are there they also buy other categories. Our ability to sell as much of those other categories makes the model more efficient for us and more relevant for our shoppers.
That’s the endeavour,” said Noronha. Avenue Supermarts is promoted by investor Radhakishan Damani and Noronha has led the entity as CEO since 2007. As of June 2023, it has 330 stores across 14 states in India catering to the priceconscious Indian consumer.
Covid-19, commodity price surge, geo-political tensions and unusual weather have collectively made consumer demand prediction extremely complicated over the last three years, Noronha said. “Non FMCG discretionary consumption in the middle and lower income levels has been adversely impacted over the last 2-3 years. Within that the value segment of
. Read more on economictimes.indiatimes.com
