News: Pantaloon's Health Village to expand biz

(BL 04/05/2006) Mumbai - Bringing all its healthcare and beauty services under one brand, Health Village, Pantaloon India intends extending this brand to cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai. The first of these malls have been set up in Ahmedabad.

Speaking to Business Line, Rahul Bhalchandra, Head, Wellness, Pantaloon Retail, said, "It is a completely new format for us since it is a combination of products and services under one roof.

We believe beauty and healthcare products is one of the fastest growing categories in retailing today and expect 8 per cent of the total turnover to accrue from this segment."

Fair pricing

Targeting its Health Village brand at the lower and middle-income groups, the retail chain is trying to bring about a `value lifestyle' format at its malls with the purpose of creating pricing benchmarks in this industry.

"We believe in democratising our services and charging a fair price. The idea is to set new benchmarks for pricing in this segment,'' said Bhalchandra, who handled RPG's Health & Glow retail chains (now owned by Dairy Farm) in the past.

Partnering a host of product and service brands, Pantaloon would retail its beauty and wellness products under the umbrella brand of Health Village with a pricing strategy which would be lower than the existing market rates.

Pantaloon is expected to bring in `global practices' into the business, which has been unorganised all this time.

"We want to explore this market and there is potential for bringing in global practices into this industry which so far has been unorganised, '' Bhalchandra said.

Offering products and services ranging from beauty salons, pharmacies, ayurveda, spas, yoga centres to fitness equipments, Health Village would have sub-brands to cater to each segment. For instance, its beauty salons would come under the name of Star & Sitara, its pharmacy has been called tulsi, the beauty stores would carry the name of tumeric, the fitness centres would be Roots while its health café would be called Elaichi.

The same brand names would get extended to the products being sold under similar categories. Its Fitness brand - Roots - would stand for its gyms, spas and fitness equipments while its pharmacy brand of Tulsi would get extended for its range of health products and service too.

Brand building

However, Pantaloon will not be relying on mass media advertising to build its mall brand.

"The Health Village brand will be built differently. We expect the brand to be built on trust for which word of mouth, PR and events will be used to communicate the value of the brand to consumers,'' Bhalchandra added.