Vijay Sales heads north

Vijay Sales, the consumer electronics and durables retail chain that is predominant in the western India, is now looking at entering the northern region, with Delhi as its next focus.

“We will now enter Delhi, where we have zero presence. The plan is to open about 5-6 stores of 15,000 -20,000 sq ft. After saturating the Delhi market, we will look at other locations,” Nilesh Gupta, managing partner, told DNA on the sidelines of India Retail Forum here on Thursday.

Vijay Sales, which is a family-owned business, will continue its strategy of owning the store and is looking for properties in various locations, Gupta said.

“Our model is a bit different, we are looking at funding only from internal accruals and not from outside. And we are not looking at tier 2 or 3 markets but want to focus on the metro markets for now,” he said.

Competition from other electronics retailers such as Tata’s Croma, Reliance Digital and Pantaloon’s E-zone has made Vijay Sales ambitious.

“Thanks to the other players that have entered this market, else we would have not turned so aggressive,” Gupta said, adding that over the last 12 months, the retailer has added 12 stores across Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Surat.

“We took the store count from 15 to 27 last year,” Gupta said. Along the way, the retailer has started to focus more on IT product offerings.

“Earlier, the focus wasn’t there on IT products. Mobiles and laptops too were there, but never were a huge focus,” Gupta said.