Chaupal Sagar: ITC's chain of rural malls in Madhya Pradesh hit bulls-eye
Shivnarayan, a farmer from Gudbela village, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, knows his economics. He shops mostly at Chaupal Sagar near Sehore-a branch of ITC's chain of rural malls-and he's here to pick up fertilisers for his soyabean crop.
Shivnarayan, a farmer from Gudbela village, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh, knows his economics. He shops mostly at Chaupal Sagar near Sehore-a branch of ITC's chain of rural malls-and he's here to pick up fertilisers for his soyabean crop.
The first Chaupal Sagar was launched in village Rafiqganj in Sehore on August 15 two years ago. Three more malls followed over the next year or so-in Vidisha, Mandsaur and Mhow, near Indore.
Chaupal Sagars offer prices lower than other retail outlets and have outstripped any other supermarket in the state capital, Bhopal, in terms of range, scale and volume.
Manohar, a regular Chaupal Sagar visitor from Bhavkhedi village nearby, says, "The cost benefit we get here is incomparable." That means more bang for the buck for its rural customers. They are such a hit that frequent travellers on the busy Bhopal-Indore highway often stop by to pick up goods.
"I first stopped by when we ran out of tissues while travelling last summer," says Gomati Bhardwaj, an executive with a private sector bank in Indore who frequently zips down to Bhopal by road. She prefers to have a cup of coffee at its spacious and hygienic cafeteria and usually picks up a little knick-knack every time she travels.
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From garments, cellphone handsets, watches, shoes, motorbikes, to fertilisers, pesticides, food processors and toiletries, the offerings are almost limitless. At the time of its launch itself the one-stop-shop notched up a daily turnover of Rs 70,000-80,000. The average footfall per day last Diwali was over 2,000 and the sales exceeded Rs 2 lakh.