Walmart India evaluating ‘food-only’ retail model

Mumbai, Sep 21 (PTI) Walmart India is evaluatingpolicy guidelines to come up with a "food-only" retail model,after the government has allowed 100 per cent foreign directinvestment in food retail, a top company official said today. "We are currently evaluating all the policy guidelinesand we do not have an ‘only food model’ anywhere. So, we needto conceptualise, evaluate and come up with a model, whichtakes time," Walmart India CEO Krish Iyer told reporters onthe sidelines of India Retail Forum here. "It is not something we will jump into very quickly,"he added. On government’s move to open up food retail toinvestment, he said all the stakeholders including retailers,consumers, and farmers will benefit from it, and it will alsoincrease access to capital, which will promote retailenterprise. For Walmart India, food retail in the cash and carrybusiness accounts for more than 65 per cent of business, hesaid. "Particularly looking at the importance of food, we dobelieve that we will continue to focus a lot more on food inour cash and carry stores," Iyer said. He also noted that resellers, particularly mom-and-popstores are the most important channel for Walmart. "Our e-commerce (B2B) experience has been good, andwhile we do not speak about the e-commerce sales, more than 50per cent of buying is digitally influenced," he said. Iyer further said that Walmart India is focusing onprivate labels, however, customer buying proposition is morecrucial. Walmart India has two private labels – Member’s Markand Right Buy. "The idea of private labels is to support make inIndia programme," he said. Walmart India operates stores in nine states acrossthe country. In the next five years, it is planning to add 50more stores, taking the total number to 70. "We continue to focus on Tier II and Tier III cities,and the opportunities here are as good as metro towns," Iyersaid, adding that availability of land is a challenge inmetros but the company continues to look for good options. PTIDSK PSK ARS BALBAS