Bharti Retail’s stores Easyday have now become Big Bazaar outlets as the Future Group has completed their integration following the merger agreement in May last year.
Future Group’s convenience stores — KB’s Fair Price and KB’s Conveniently Yours — are being turned into Easyday supermarket or neighbourhood stores in an attempt to streamline formats and improve customer connect.
The retail giant will also not open any new convenience stores under the KB’s Fair Price and KB’s Conveniently Yours brands; future expansion of the neighbourhood supermarket format will be done only as Easyday.
Already, the group has taken the Easyday supermarket store count from 188 at the time of merger to around 300 now. The new stores have been added mostly in Delhi-NCR, Haryana and Punjab.
The merger of Bharti Retail and Future Retail resulted in a ₹15,000-crore company, which has now been de-merged into two companies.
The front-end company remains Future Retail while the back-end infrastructure company is expected to be listed next month. Big Bazaar, India’s largest hypermarket chain, is also becoming successful in its attempt to cater to a wider customer segment, which began last year with its Gen Nxt stores.
In the last 10 years, the Indian market itself has undergone a change, with customers wanting better experience and products.