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The Ola Stores project was a challenge to build and launch several physical retail stores for Ola, a ride-hailing company, within 7 days. The project involved an aggressive three-week pre-planning phase to create a master plan that could be replicated across multiple sites with minimal variations.
The retail landscape has been in a state of constant transformation from the past 2-3 years and the pace has exponentially increased in the past 1.5 years. After several pandemic-induced lockdowns and social distancing, customers are back to the offline shopping patterns and as the demand grows, retail brands are stretching their wings wide to launch new offline stores.
CEAT, the flagship company of RPG Enterprises, was established in 1958. Today, CEAT is one of India’s leading tyre manufacturers with a capacity of over 800 tons per day and has a strong presence in global markets. CEAT enjoys a major market share in the Truck, Light Truck, and 2-wheeler segment, and its tubes and flaps are renowned for their superior quality and durability.
Commercial fit-out firm 91Squarefeet plans a Rs 20 crore expansion into Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Chennai, investing Rs 5 crore in each city. The company, growing at 300% YoY, aims to hire a 50-member team in each location. Founded in 2019, it raised $11 million, with FY 2022-23 revenue at Rs 55 crore, expecting Rs 130 crore in FY 2023-24. The current team of 250 includes 30 architects and 150 project management experts. Expansion begins in Q1 2024 in Pune and Hyderabad, targeting Ahmedabad and Chennai in H2 2024.
Construction tech startup 91Squarefeet, on Tuesday, announced that it has raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Stellaris Venture Partners. Existing investors Y Combinator, Betatron Venture Group, and some angel investors also participated in the round.
91Squarefeet plans to use the funds to strengthen its on-ground service and product development teams and deepen engagement with its supplier network.
The Gurgan-based startup created a standard retail expansion playbook for brands looking to increase their nationwide retail footprints. Using an AI-driven project management tool, brands can upload all the retail fit-out components of their store templates. The company, which has over two dozen clients, including Aditya Birla Group, and Reliance Retail, has worked on 400 stores last year. 91Squarefeet's retail expansion plan for brands is to work on over 2000 stores in FY23.
As we move into almost the mid of 2022, with the global pandemic still ongoing, there have been dramatic changes to the world of retail. Online retailers face increasing challenges, including filling orders and refreshing inventory rapidly, and reducing revenue and wastage caused by returns. Offline, in the world of malls, high streets, and bricks ‘n’ mortar, the challenges are very different. The rising role of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the growing need for a seamless shopping experience, and increasing personalization has been focal area of consideration for offline retailers.
Hear Amit Bansal, Co-founder, and CEO of 91Squarefeet (YC W22) (YC W22), as he pans his views on how physical retail business is vital in commerce everywhere and all the time and how modern human lifestyle has a slight mix of buying things at physical stores.
"We are also seeing a rising trend around the adoption of electronics and IOTs such as commercial digital panels, proximity and lighting sensors around the entrance, automatic start/stop timer in power circuits, beacon sensors among other things," said Amit Bansal, co-founder at 91 Squarefeet that has worked on 550 stores.
Gurugram-based 91Squarefeet is growing at 20 percent month-on-month and is working with more than 30 marquee brands, including Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, Himalaya, and Reliance, on their retail expansion plans. They are helping the brands to build brick and mortar network.
Retail store development startup 91Squarefeet has created a standard retail expansion playbook for brands looking to increase their nationwide footprint. Online shopping may be here to stay, but retail stores aren’t going away anywhere. But even though operating online has become easier and faster, launching retail stores remains a challenge.
Online shopping has seen frenzied demand in the pandemic years as consumers prefer it for the sake of safety and convenience. But it is premature to write off brick-and-mortar retail in favour of ecommerce. Retail is now undergoing a tremendous transformation and entering the hybrid/omnichannel stage where offline will remain a key growth driver. Hence, setting up traditional retail stores in sync with the new-age mixed commerce has become the need of the hour. Launched in 2018, Gurugram-based 91SquareFeet helps retail brands to build and maintain their physical stores in India without big teams. It currently hosts 20+ clients such as Van Heusen, Philips, CEAT, Pepperfry, Chai Point and more.
Furniture and fixtures play a crucial role in the expansion of any retail business. Each time a retailer wants to expand to a new geography, they need to work with several contractors to build the entire set-up.
Amit Bansal is the cofounder of 91Squarefeet. At 91Squarefeet, they have advanced AI Driven Technological systems to navigate the myriad of possible challenges involved in opening a retail store; a diverse network of reliable and cost-effective suppliers.
Retail store development company 91Squarefeet (formerly Rolling Banners) has raised $1 million (around Rs 7.5 crore) in a pre-seed funding round from Omphalos Ventures India, Nikhil Vora of Sixth Sense Ventures, actor Rannvijay Singh Singha and VG-Angels, among others.
