After Tiruchy and Coimbatore, those large, sprawling convenience stores stylishly named ‘Hypermarkets’ are now in Chennai too. Launched here at Velachery recently by the Spencer’s group, the hypermarket claims to offer more than 14,000 products apart from a live bakery, an exclusive facility for meat products and a wide collection of ethnic and international food.
Spread over a whopping 23,000 sq ft, The ‘hyper’ store, according to chief executive Mohit Kampani, offers a wide range of indigenous and imported products such as cheese and wine. The first floor is labelled the ‘power aisle’ as the customers drive through this level. In order to ease the shopping experience for customers, the store has an exclusive ramp, staffed with an ample number of employees to help them out.
The live bakery, Patisserie, offers more than 140 varieties of bakery products, sweets and confectionaery, with over 80 varieties of breads alone – but the price range starts from a mere `5.
All the bakery products will be manufactured on the premises, says Kampani and fresh hot bakery products will be available as and when customers want them. One thing that might draw the crowd towards the bakery is the range of cheese like Smoked Cheese, Gouda and Provolone among others imported from places like France, Germany and Denmark.
The 150-year-old retail chain plans to open its second such store in Pallavaram within a year and 80 others across the country in the next 48 months.
According to Mohit Kampani, this retail store took five months to establish with the contract and other paperwork completed in the month of January.