Date:11/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/11/stories/2008091154210500.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Consumer electronics store opened

Special Correspondent

Over 3,000 items of 150 brands available under one roof

PHOTO: Satish H.

It’s X-CITING: Robots dancing to remote signals at the launch of X-cite in Hyderabad on Wednesday. —

HYDERABAD: Impact Retail Private Limited opened its first store of consumer electronics at Banjara Hills here on Wednesday with a brand name ‘X-cite’.

The store showcases a wide range of 3,000 consumer electronic items in 150 brands, including televisions, computers and peripherals, mobile phones and white goods under one roof.

The company, floated by Tony Jashanmal, who has business interests in retail sector in India and West Asia, proposes to open 30 exclusive showrooms by 2009-end.

Impact Retail has forged a franchise alliance and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship with Alghanim Industries, a Kuwait-based manufacturing and automobile and retail chain. Srikant Gokhalae, CEO of Impact Retail, said at a press conference that X-cite stores would be opened in seven more cities in the near future. The company planned to invest Rs. 200 crores in its expansion plans.

The average investment in each store would be Rs. 5 crores and would have 20,000 sq. ft of area. The stores would offer delivery of products within 24 hours and offered after sales service and extended warranty. It also floated attractive schemes like ‘celebrate’ for word-of-mouth publicity through which the person referring a customer to the store and the person referred would get gifts. Besides, it offered redeemable coupons and ‘spin-to-win’ wheel through which one could earn gifts up to Rs. 5,000.