BIGFlix Movie Rentals plans expansion via franchising

One of India's online and offline movie rental service BIGFlix Movie Rentals (a division of Reliance BIG Entertainment), plans to expand by opening 150 stores by March 2011, via franchise route. BIGFlix currently delivers movies to nine cities with a total retail presence of 60 stores and an access to a wide range of 21000 titles across 13 Indian languages.

The BIGFlix franchise business will have two models, namely, store franchise and master franchise. Store franchise, is where the interested party can become the franchise of a single store in any specific city and master franchise, is where the interested party can opt for the franchise of a set number of stores for a specific geographic location.

BIGFlix.com will now deliver movies at home to the people residing in Tier II cities which will include Jaipur, Vadodara, Surat, Lucknow, Nasik, Jamshedpur, Kochi, Patna, Nagpur, Kanpur and many more. BIGFlix.com will engage local logistic partners best suited to the respective cities' dynamics to deliver movies at home to the masses.

Speaking on the franchise plans, Puneet Sachdeva, Chief Lead - Franchise Operations, BIGFlix.com, said, "We are all geared up with the launch of our new expansion plan with the franchise route. While we will focus on the brand building and content acquisition aspects meeting with the specific requirements of the denizens residing in these cities, our franchisees will handle all the logistics and operations of the business.”

Also, commenting on the launch, Pankaj Chandra, Chief Lead - Online Movie Rentals, said, "With the franchise route we aim to focus on the core aspects of our business and also reach as many people as possible and satisfy their overall movie entertainment needs.”

BIGFlix Movie Rentals presently has 10 franchise stores in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chandigarh, Faridabad and Panipat and will start operations once they have their respective logistics partners finalised for these cities.