Koskii to add 20 stores by 2018; restricts initial expansion to South India only

Women's ethnic wear brand Koskii is planning to open 20 stores by next year, 7-10 amongst which will find places in different parts of South India. Koskii, a new brand identity of Mina Bazaar, the famous traditional retailer of women’s ethnic wear from Karnataka, today has 5 stores in Bangalore and very soon will open its 6th one at the city’s Phoenix Mall. The next 4-5 stores, which will be operational in next 5-6 months will be at Mysore, Chennai and different parts of Kerala.

Umar Akhter, CEO, Koskii, told Retail4growth, “We restricted our rollout to Bangalore initially not only because it’s a melting pot of cultures but also because we wanted to strengthen our strong foothold in the city. We then started receiving customer interest from all these places in South India and planned to move in those directions. Eventually we will proceed towards other parts of the country too.” On the business model of Koskii, Akhter added, “Right now, it’s an investors’ model, where we handle complete end-to-end operations of all our retail stores and work on a revenue-share model with our investors. After gaining momentum, we will go into franchisee model.”