Posted on
July 19, 2015 09:38:00 PM [ BusinessWorld Online ]
By Krista A.
M. Montealegre, Senior Reporter
MULTI-format
retailer Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc. (RRHI) is expanding its community mall
chain with a plan to open at least two Robinsons Townville every year through
2020, an official of the Gokongwei-led company said.
“We plan to
open two a year [in the next five years],” RRHI President Robina Gokongwei-Pe
told reporters last week.
Robinsons
Supermarket Corp. General Manager Jody S. Gadia said RRHI is not discounting
the possibility of rolling out as much as three to four strip malls every year.
Asked why
RRHI is building more community malls, Ms. Gokongwei-Pe said: “Because of
traffic.”
“There are
many densely populated neighborhoods in the Philippines.
They don’t
want to go out anymore....They want to find everything in their community,” she
said.
Robinsons
Townville is located near densely populated neighborhoods within and in the
outskirts of Metro Manila.
Ranging from
5,000 square meters (sqms.) to 10,000 sqms., Robinsons Townville has Robinsons
Supermarket as its anchor tenant.
The Gokongweis’
multi-format stores account for 60-70% of the community mall’s retail space.
The balance is leased out to quick service restaurants and a few other
establishments to complete the shopping experience of its customers.
RRHI ventured
into community mall development three years ago but it was only this year when
the company rebranded its malls to carry the Robinsons Townville brand, Mr.
Gadia said. The company has a chain of nine community malls, which are
different from malls under the Robinsons Galleria brand.
The listed
retailer has six business segments: supermarkets; department stores;
do-it-yourself (DIY) stores; convenience stores; drug stores; and specialty
stores. Some of the brand names under RRHI include “Handyman Do it Best”, “True
Value”, “Topshop”, “Topman”, “Toys “R” Us”, and “Ministop”.
E-COMMERCE
FORAY
Likewise,
RRHI has forayed this year into e-commerce, a retail channel it said holds “a
lot of potential.”
“We’re
looking into it. Right now, we sell our appliances and consumer electronics via
Lazada. That’s a start,” Ms. Gokongwei-Pe said.
This year
will also mark the start of the rollout of British coffee chain Costa Coffee
with plans to open in four more sites including Robinsons Place Manila,
Bonifacio Global City, and a second location in Libis, Quezon City, she said.
Its wholly
owned subsidiary Robinsons Gourmet Food and Beverage, Inc. last year inked an
international distribution agreement for the operations of 70 Costa Coffee
shops in the Philippines in the next five years.
Ms.
Gokongwei-Pe had said in March it would allocate P6 billion this year for
capital expenditures, higher than the P4 billion spent in 2014, to support
store network expansion mostly outside the Philippine capital.
The retailer
is adding 270-300 stores that will boost gross floor area in the mid-teens
level and increase store count to close to 1,600 stores by the end of the year.
________________________________________________________________
