New Delhi: Kushal’s Fashion Jewellery is eyeing aggressive expansion beyond its southern stronghold, with plans to scale up to 300 stores over the next three-and-a-half years as it doubles down on its omnichannel and tech-led retail play.
In an interview with ETRetail, Manish Gulechha, co-founder of the company, said the company will follow a cluster-based approach for the next phase of growth, focusing on understanding local preferences and building regional relevance as it strengthens its foothold into markets like Maharashtra and other parts of West and North India.
Founded in 2006, it currently operates over 100 company-owned stores, has so far focused largely on Southern India, which accounts for nearly 80 per cent of its footprint. Going forward, 60 per cent of the product mix will remain standardised, while the remaining 40 per cent will be tailored to local market preferences.
Despite an offline heavy presence, the brand now expects e-commerce to contribute 50 per cent of its overall revenue in the next three years, up from the current 20 per cent. The growth is expected to come equally from marketplaces and its own website. Gulechha said, “Consumer behaviour today is channel-agnostic. Many customers discover products online and choose to buy in-store, and vice versa.”
Talking about its key differentiator and innovation, he said, “Innovation is about customizing the requirements… we have invested in our own engineering team. We have an in-house engineering team so we build, we write our own code.”
From showing nearby store inventory to tailoring collections based on consumer profiles, the company is aiming to make product discovery and conversion more efficient. “We are also building content that can be personalized. The same jewelry can be styled in three ways. We even customize that content and show it to the targeted audience,” Gulechha explained.
Further, he shared, “We are more focused on design and what the jewelry would speak or some stories that actually would say. Always blending the traditional designs with a modern approach has been our focus.”
Kushal’s, which has been profitable since inception, bootstrapped its early growth before raising its first round of equity funding. “Most of our journey has been through internal funding… we took our first equity funding when we had clarity that we can make this into a larger brand,” Gulechha said.
“We are well capitalized to take this journey forward,” he added.
The company grew 35 per cent last year and is aiming to maintain that momentum this fiscal with its four growth pillars – improving the in-store experience, growing digital sales, investing in brand and content, and building a future-ready workforce of over 1,000 employees.
