CaratLane, a Tanishq partnership, and one of India's leading omni-channel jeweller is fast expanding their offline footprint across the country. The brand is targeting to further open 20 more stores by the end of this year. In a chat with Retail4Growth Atul Sinha shares more on their retail and brand visibility. 

Why has offline presence become vital for CaratLane?  

CaratLane primarily today is an omni-channel brand. Our offline channel is essentially a logical extension of our digital identity. We observed that our customers are looking for that touch and feel experience while buying our products and thus we started physical stores.

How many stores CaratLane is planning to add this year?

So far Pan India we have 32 stores and we are looking to expand with 20 more stores by the end of this year. 

Tell us more about your retail strategy?

For opening a store, the right location is very important. For CaratLane, we operate both in terms of company owned and franchise model, so almost half of our stores are our own and half of it franchise based.

Are you looking at expanding in the tier II and III cities as well?

We want to go deep into tier II and III cities as well but at the same time we feel that the metro cities like Bangalore, Kolkata etc. still have opportunities to consume more stores. We are looking at markets like Guwahati, Ahmedabad and soon have opened a store in Indore as well. 

Tell us about your partnership with Tanishq.

Titan Company Limited’s Tanishq has invested 62% in CaratLane and as a brand we have hugely been benefitted due to this JV. Tanishq is helping CaratLane majorly in extending its retail network, also we have done lot of integration at the backend with Tanishq. In fact, lot of our jewellery even is getting manufactured in the factory of Tanishq. 

Throw some light on your store design and the digital experience? 

Our store design is internally done by our VM team and the salient feature of our store format is we keep our doors open to give a welcoming feel to the customers. Also all our cabinets are against the walls and we have open displays. This thought is our brand philosophy as we feel that it helps to break the barrier between the customers and the jewellery. 

CaratLane is also the only jewelley retailer in India who has the virtual try-on 'magic mirror'. This has been designed for the customers who wants to have a virtual trial of those collections which may not be present at the store at that moment but they can place the order through this platform from the store itself.