Reliance Jewels to roll out expansion, focus on malls

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Oct 4, 2017

After celebrating a decade in the Indian jewellery industry, Reliance Jewels plans to roll out a new wave of expansion plans that will focus on increasing their presence in malls.

The jewellery giant, which currently has 51 showrooms in 37 cities, will be concentrating its next expansion on malls in order to adapt to the changing needs of the market that the brand has witnessed during its decade in the industry. Sunil Nayak, the CEO of Reliance Jewels, said about the ever evolving jewellery business: “India is a unique country in which festivals and weddings are associated with jewellery buying as per customs and traditions. Jewellery buying no doubt peaks during these occasions. However, with the ‘uber-isation’ of India, people have now started looking at jewellery differently. From being a sentiment driven adornment, jewellery is slowly moving towards becoming a fashion accessory. Indians are slowly looking to imbibe jewellery, especially diamond jewellery in their routine life. In fact, jewellery does compete with other products like electronics also now for the share of customers wallet.”

Nayak went on to say: “There has been an increase in demand for special light weight, every day, work wear and lower karat age jewellery that has made jewellery buying an everyday affair and not restricted to just occasions.” Jewellery buying has become a more regular occurrence and pieces that can be worn everyday are in more demand. In this way, having an increased presence in malls makes sense for the brand as they are spaces that consumers visit regularly instead of just for occasions.

Overseas expansion is not yet on the brand’s radar and Nayak said: “We are currently looking at consolidating and deriving maximum efficiencies and efficacy from within the country to start off with and as such expansion in the overseas markets is not on the cards as of yet. Our focus will be on cities and states where we are already present to derive the economies of scale.” Although malls will be the main target for store openings, Nayak stated that highstreets in areas where malls are not present will also be considered.