Walk inside the sprawling Metro AG Cash & Carry store in Kukatpally area of Hyderabad and you are sure to feel spellbound. The giant shopping center, spread over an area of 7 acres, occupies a selling space of 100,000 sq ft, which includes a 20,000 sq ft temperature-controlled space to store perishable food items such as vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat and fish. A customer (read: wholesaler) can find, under one roof, an assortment of over 18,000 articles across food and non-food segments at the best wholesale prices. The center, which aims to reach an annual turnover of Rs. 300 cr has over 75,000 small and medium retailers, traders and other institutional businesses registered as its customers.
Customers can purchase quality products with the help of a computerized goods management system throughout the week in a 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. environment; a distant dream just a few months back. The center operates on a self-service basis. Besides Hyderabad, the Business to Business (B2B) retailing division of the German retailer, Metro AG, also has its stores in Bangalore, where it entered first. Buoyed by its success in two of the most happening cities in India, the German giant now wants to leverage its globally successful model in other major cities of this country as well. And it is not just Metro which is eyeing to tap the opportunities in the B2B retail segment. A host of domestic as well as global retailers are trying their utmost to replicate Metro's globally successful cash & carry model to grab a bigger share of the Indian retail pie.
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