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T Courts Retail Indonesia, a subsidiary of Singaporean retailer Courts Asia Ltd., aims to open more stores in Jakarta and other major cities as it prepares to launch its first megastore in October.

Courts Indonesia CEO Roy Santoso said the company was looking to build 10 to 12 megastores in Indonesia over the next five years.

The company will be investing between US$3 million and $4 million per store.

'€œWe already have two or three locations in the pipeline, but Jakarta and its surrounding areas will be the focus of our expansion in the coming two to three years. As for the medium- to long-term expansion, we are looking at two to three major cities in the country,'€ he said on Wednesday.

As part of the expansion plan, the company will begin construction on a second megastore in Bumi Serpong Damai, South Tangerang, Banten, which will also be its headquarters.

Construction, which is due to start at the end of this year, is scheduled for completion in the second half of next year.

The company'€™s first megastore will be the largest of all the Courts stores, with a two-story, 12,000 square meter building on 2 hectares of land in Kota Harapan Indah, Bekasi, West Java. The ground-breaking was conducted in October last year with the help of property developer PT Sinar Mas Land.

Roy said the Bekasi store would be the first '€œbig-box'€ megastore, selling at least 12,000 items from 200 international and local brands. Twenty to 30 percent of all electronics and furniture will be domestic brands, according to Roy.

Thirty percent of the building space will be reserved for electronic and information technology (IT) products; 15 to 20 percent will be for home appliances and accessories, and the remaining space will be for furniture.

'€œWe will also provide a delivery service, and customers can pay in cash or by debit and credit card, or use our in-house credit program called the Courts Flexi Scheme,'€ he added.

The company chose Bekasi for its first megastore due to the city'€™s large population of 2.5 million people, most of whom are in the middle-income bracket.

In order to boost sales, Roy said Courts was planning to establish an e-commerce website to provide customers with an easy shopping option. The online service is expected to go live in the first quarter of next year.

Roy added, however, that the company had yet to calculate the sales target for the first megastore as it was a new business model.

'€œWe will make an advanced estimate if we reach a significant economies of scale level after we establish three or four stores in the next two to three years,'€ he said.

Courts Asia Ltd., which is listed on the Singapore Exchange, was established in Singapore in 1974 and Malaysia in 1987 has 70 outlets comprising combined total retail space of nearly 397,000 square meters. The company was originally founded in 1850 in the UK as a furniture retailer, but later expanded its business to incorporate electronic goods in the Caribbean and Asia.

Roy said the parent company was attracted by the potential of Indonesia'€™s market with its growing number of middle-class consumers as a result of the country'€™s improving economy.

Indonesia'€™s consumer class is expected to triple in size by 2020 to 135 million people, who are expected to spend $1 trillion more each year than at present, according to a Mc-Kinsey & Company report. (gda)