4:30-9:00 P.M., MARCH 10, 2007
HyperCITY, Malad, Mumbai
 |
| A one-stop shop: Kids
can play cricket while their parents mull which fish to
buy or what crockery to pick
|
I have a simple policy about
weekends: I do no office work. But when a killjoy editor calls you
and tells you that he's got plans for your weekend, there's little
you can do, except say yes and try to keep the expletives you are
muttering at him real soft. There's a silver lining to this assignment,
though: I'll be shopping-well, actually, window-shopping-at Mumbai's,
nay India's, showcase hypermarket, the K. Raheja Group-promoted
Hypercity. The brief is to find out for myself why this 10-month-old
retail destination has already won international awards for design,
and voted one of the "100 Shops You Must Visit" across
the world.
So, here I am at Hypercity's Malad store on a late Saturday
afternoon, clutching not a shopping bag, but a notebook. First
things first: It's a beautiful store even from the outside, but
even that hardly prepares you for what lies inside. As I get past
the smartly dressed security guard (who, I discover later, also
keeps a count of visitors), I step into what is easily the best-looking
retail store in India. Laid out before me is 124,000 sq. ft of
state-of-the-art retail science (there's more to store design
and layout than what mere art can deliver). The brightly lit store
and all the tidily stacked products on its shelves seem to be
radiating a simple message at shoppers like myself: come, shop
till you drop.
I see a staircase leading to the mezzanine floor that even from
my disadvantaged vantage point seems interesting. As I walk up,
I see a huge stock of electronic goods, ranging from television
sets to music systems to DVD players, besides an entertainment
section that has music and movies in abundance. Hey, there's even
an LG home theatre demo room, where people can check out stuff
without disturbing the other shoppers. I am tempted to pick up
a few movie DVDs, but remind myself that I am here to window-shop
and observe, not buy.
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| OK, where should we head first?
And, of course, try out some free samples
|
I move on to the next section, only to discover a cricket 'pitch'
with a net around it. The penny dropped late, but I figured that
this is sports 'department', where you can practice a few strokes
before deciding on a bat. Apparently, not only has the game become
richer over the years, but its gear has become expensive too.
Some of the better bats had price tags upwards of Rs 4,000. A
couple of metres away, I see fancy bicycles with gears. "We
had (movie star) Hrithik Roshan come in with Kunal Kapoor (also
an actor) to buy one of these", says Kumar, a rather enthusiastic
salesman. There are bikes here priced at as much as Rs 99,000
(MRP is higher at Rs 1.25 lakh), but the one Roshan bought cost
less than Rs 10,000. Most products at Hypercity, I discover, are
priced well below the suggested MRP. As I walk away from the section,
I see a teenager badgering his father for a bike, and smile thinking
of the clever retailer strategy.
A serendipitous journey through the rest of the store impresses
me even more. Specially, the food section. The thing about Hypercity,
where both the CEO and COO are Brits (Andrew Levermore and John
Wilcox, respectively), is that there is no paucity of food or
beverages. There are a lot of things that can be sampled, and
an Espresso Roast seems like a good idea. The lady at the counter
smiles at me as she asks, "Do you like it, Sir, or would
you want some sugar to go with it?" She then tells me that
a lot of people who like the sample get back for more. I look
around and spot some chocolates. I ask to taste Trufle Cognac
and it feels very good. The counter next to chocolates is sampling
cheese and the Taleggio (an Italian tangy cheese) looks very good.
I pop in a piece of it and decide to get back to work before my
girth widens.
Earlier, I have been in touch with Raj Wilkinson, Joint Managing
Director of JHP, a London-based commercial design consultancy
that worked on the Hypercity store design, and he tells me that
the brief was to do "an international store that would allow
(the customers) to engage with brands on an international scale".
Ergo, the uncluttered layout of the store, clear and precise signages,
emphasis on product first, and 32 check-out counters. Apparently,
the Hypercity team travelled 284,600 miles around the world, engaged
1,027 different suppliers, and sourced 48,206 product lines to
get the store going. The result: more than one million customers
flocked to the store in the first three months of its opening.
No doubt, Hypercity will have competition and imitators as well.
But as I wrapped up my four-and-a- half hour of window-shopping
at the store, I was pretty sure that Hypercity had set the bar
high. |
