Bottled water major Bisleri International is planning to set up its own exclusive retail outlets - 'Bisleri Shopees' - in India as it looks to counter shopkeepers pushing rival brands.
"Opening 'Bisleri Shopees' requires a lot of working and deployment strategies to be in place, which is presently being worked upon," Bisleri International Director Anjana Ghosh said.
She, however, did not give further details as to by when the company is likely to open the first store and also the number of outlets planned.
Ghosh said the reason behind the plans to set up exclusive outlets is to provide consumers Bisleri products 'at the right price' and also avoid losing out to rivals who are pushing
their brand by giving bigger margins to shopkeepers.
"The inability of other branded water to create value for their brand has left them with no alternative but to buy out the retailer by giving him high margins," she said.
Every consumer asks for Bisleri but is given some other product perhaps where the retailer gets a better margin, she added.
"Water is an impulse purchase, hence consumer can't wait and is cheated by the shopkeeper," she said.
Bisleri competes with the likes of PepsiCo's 'Aquafina', Coca Cola's 'Kinley' and UB Group's 'Kingfisher' in the bottled water segment. Comments from these companies could not be immediately obtained.
Besides, the company has been looking at expanding its product portfolio and is planning to launch fruit-flavoured water in the country.
