Shopping for music and home videos is set to get bigger than ever before in the New Year. MusicWorld, which rolled out Calcutta’s first formatted music retail outlet back in March 2000 on Park Street, thus setting the tone for organised retail to spread wings in the city, is all set to turn up the volume in 2009 with a flagship store in South City Mall.

“We will turn the store inside the Spencer’s Hypermart in South City into India’s largest pure-format music outlet with over 100,000 titles on the racks,” says K. Dasaratharaman, president, speciality retail business, Spencer’s Retail Ltd, the umbrella company for the RPG Group’s retail businesses.

At 7,000 sq ft, the floor-plate is larger than the Park Street store (4,500 sq ft) and the management hopes to “recreate the magic of Park Street in south Calcutta” in the South City outlet, which is scheduled to be launched in its new avatar on January 14.

“This giant format is prompted by consumer preference. We had a combo of Books & Beyond and MusicWorld sitting together inside the South City Spencer’s. However, sales of music per square foot was always much higher than that of books and Spencer’s customers demanded a pure-format music store, which is in perfect sync with our plans,” Dasaratharaman points out.

The born-again South City MusicWorld will lay “enhanced focus” on international music, gaming and old Hindi films. There will be a complete digitised photo-solutions kiosk, where any image can be converted into any form, including options for customised scrapbooks, special-occasion photo albums, screen-printing on personal items and the like.

“We will also introduce a complete music download centre, where iPods and mobiles of all makes could be loaded with music of the customer’s choice, besides video ring-tones, for the first time in Calcutta,” says S.K. Chowdhury, president (music & books), Spencer’s Retail Ltd.

At the South City store, MusicWorld is also planning to launch its exclusive home-video collection series, with titles clubbed together on specific themes like romance, mystery, war and religion. The chain will also kick off its customer loyalty programme to coincide with the re-launch of the South City store.

The MusicWorld management is planning another large-format store in the northern precincts of the city, with both Ultadanga and Sector V on the radar. “This is a good time to grow, since the real estate market is in a rationalisation mode and rentals are getting corrected,” says Dasaratharaman.

MusicWorld Park Street remains the best-performing outlet in the chain, consistently clocking business of Rs 1 crore-plus a month. Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, follows with 70 lakh.With police permission to stay open till 11.30pm during the Christmas-New Year week, Park Street MusicWorld was able to achieve its December sales target of Rs 1.4 crore, despite the reduced NRI footfall.

(Where do you buy your music from? Tell t2@abpmail.com)