Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Aug 24, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Aug 24, 2002 |
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Marketing
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Retailing Ebony scouting for sites in Bangalore, Hyderabad for stores Harsha Subramaniam
CHENNAI, Aug. 23 EBONY, the retail chain, is looking for prime real estate property to set up its stores in Bangalore and Hyderabad. In an interview to Business Line, Mr H.S. Kohli, Chief Operating Officer, Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd, said the company was willing to start operations in these cities once it gets a good location at a reasonable price. The retailer is going slow in deciding on retail space. Its choice of location in Chennai — in the busy Nungambakkam area — has been criticised by many. "But there are advantages because on a high street with busy traffic, awareness about the store is great," argues Mr Kohli. Being a North-based retail chain, awareness about the Ebony brand is very low in Chennai, he adds. In fact, Ebony carried out a pre-launch dipstick survey which revealed that only 3 per cent of the sample was aware of the store. "However, it was encouraging when our post-launch survey revealed that awareness increased to 28 per cent. That's the advantage of being in a busy street," he reasons. Mr Kohli admits that it is going to be a tough task to create loyal customers in a city which has a highly competitive retail environment with the big four players ( LifeStyle, Globus, Shoppers' Stop, Westside) already having entrenched themselves in the market. As of now, Ebony registers an average footfall around 1000 (between 900 and 1200) during the weekdays and around 2000 (between1800 and 2400) during the weekends. With a projected turnover of around Rs 14 crore, Mr Kohli expects the Chennai store to break even in two years. To achieve this, Ebony has adopted a shop-in-shop format and has formed alliances with several retailers such as Vivek's, Qwikys, Natalia, Airtel, Sify, Musicworld among others. Ebony also has its private label Ebony Etc which reportedly contributes to 21 per cent of the company's total turnover of around Rs 70 crore.
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