April 4, 2013: Digiworld promoted by Videocon Group which has till now remained as a single brand retailer selling almost 90 per cent of Videocon Industries consumer durable products is going to change its format and is getting into multi brand retailing. Videocon has another retail format, Next Retail which is already into multi brand retailing. With Digiworld foraying into multi brand retailing, it will be directly pitted against Next Retail.
Digiworld which recorded a sales turnover of Rs.350 crores is positioned as a ‘smart neighbourhood electronics store’. The retail chain has been till now selling apart from the mother brand Videocon, Videocon owned brands like Kelvinator Electrolux and Sansui as well. In the last couple of weeks they have stopped stocking just Videocon brands and started stocking other brands as well.
With this move of Digiworld becoming a multi brand retailer, Videocon expects it to be the growth engine of the company and whereas they are restricting the growth of Next Retail to 600 stores and that too in non-metros. Digiworld has plans to expand its reach from 428 stores which are mostly located in tier 2 and 3 cities to 1000 stores.
Though both Digiworld and Next Retail would be taking the franchise route for growth Digiworld will be having centralised buying operations and Next Retail will be following a decentralised buying operation.
