Malabar Gold to open 750 new stores by 2023

In an ambitious global plan, Kerala-based global jewelry retailer Malabar Gold & Diamonds plans to triple its retail network from 250 this year to 750 outlets by 2023.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds plans to triple its retail network to 750 outlets and raise Group turnover to US$6.85 billion (Rs 50,000 crore) in the next five year. The company is also hoping to exceed its annual turnover to around US$6.16 billion (Rs 45,000 crore) by 2023.

As a start of its ambitious expansion plan, it has opened its 100th store in Chandigarh on 13th October 2018. The company will also tap into tire-1 and tire-2 cities in North and Central India.

In order to cater to the growing jewelry market, its aggressive business expansion plan will see the company expand its footprint in new territories such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia, Canada, Egypt and Turkey. “As much as 40% of the Malabar Group turnover will be generated from its operations outside India,” the company said in a release.

The Group currently operates retail outlets spread across ten countries - India, the US, Middle East, Southeast Asia and America.

Malabar Gold & Diamond have three types of store format – one is high street big shops, and second is at shopping malls and third is specialty shops.

In the store format, the retailer has two verticals in jewelry - Malabar Gold & Diamond with 22 carat and newly introduced MGD Lifestyle jewelry. For MGD Lifestyle, the store format is smaller. “In overseas market we even have kiosk in shopping malls where the traffic is vivacious, but in India we find that selling jewelry at kiosk is not popular, people don’t buy from kiosk so here we are looking for small format shops,” said KP Abdul Salam, Group Executive Director, Malabar Gold & Diamond.

Describing the store design format, Salam said, “Jewelry being a traditional product, we don’t believe in flashy decoration, our store decor is modest and we like to take the traditional approach. Our store design highlights our product.”

“We would like to call us as Indian brand, internationally placed. Whichever market we grow we would like to present as Indian Brand. Even we are entering in modern retailing; we still have a touch of traditional retailing because our product is traditional and people likes traditional touch,” he added.

Malabar Gold & Diamond has centralised design agency based out of Bangalore, who does the basic design for the store and for different places they do the changes according to the city’s ambience for which they take use local designers.