“We opened 36 new Tanishq stores in FY20, and had planned to open 35-36 new Tanishq stores in FY21 but ended up opening 26 new stores. Everything got deferred due to the pandemic. This fiscal, our pre-Covid wave-2 plan was to open 35-36 Tanishq stores, but post the second wave, we have to take stock of our plans to implement some course corrections along the way,” Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Titan Jewellery Division, told press persons. The company, which has 356 Tanishq stores, plans its store openings over a two-year horizon. Most of the new stores will be franchisee stores which will be set up at an investment of Rs 25 crore per store (including the inventory).

While the market conditions continue to be volatile and uncertain, the outlook for jewellery continues to be good. Unlike this year, where Covid has gone in deep into the countryside, last year, Tier-3 and -4 towns did very well as they were relatively unaffected by Covid. Titan saw good rural demand last year therefore, they therefore don’t see any reason to hold back their expansion drive into small towns and newer catchment areas.

The company has opened 270 Tanishq stores of its 356 stores and hopes to open 15-20 more by the end of the day. Every store that is opened will have 100 per cent vaccinated staff or staff who have antibodies after having recovered from Covid. Safety protocols have been tightened and made even more stringent. For example, all store staff will be double masked and customers will also be given a second mask upon entering the store.

They are installing air purifiers in certain areas, because we know now the virus is airborne. They are taking special care of their A/C filters and also experimenting with some air purifiers which have some advanced technology. They are currently piloting it in some stores and will roll it out soon. They are also experimenting and rolling out an anti-microbial coating for jewellery like everyday wear — rings, bangles, chains etc for which we are collaborating with a European organisation. This unique technology kills any microbe including Covid. While it can last longer, the guarantee will be for a year. They have launched it in Lucknow and Chennai and will launch it in Kolkata and Hyderabad next, after which a national rollout is planned over the next few months.

All the company’s stores have got licenses for hallmarking from BIS and all the jewellery including the opening stock of 2 million pieces across the country are 100 per cent hallmarked.

The company ended FY 2021 with flat growth on reported sales garnering Rs 18,460 crore in retail consumer sales plus clinched a huge institutional order of gold coins from the Tamil Nadu Government. New age shopping which includes online, omnichannel, remote shopping (video calls, endless aisles), sending products to customer homes for trials, delivering products to customer homes, now contributes to 9 per cent of the company’s sales and Titan expects this to grow to 15 per cent going forward.

In an insecure environment gold emerges as a safe haven for most people on the one hand, while safety and convenience of going to a Tanishq store near by which was a huge competitive advantage for them last year, will continue to drive market share for them, they believe.