Omnichannel jeweller Caratlane looks to leverage its partnership with Titan as it plans to expand its retail network and turn operationally profitable in the current financial year.
Caratlane was founded in 2008 by Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan as an affordable online jewellery platform. However, the brand is now setting up retail stores, backed by a funds infusion from Titan, which had invested Rs 100 crore in the last fiscal that raised its stake to 69.47 per cent from 66.39 per cent.
At present, the company has around 62 stores and plans to expand to around 90 stores by the end of the financial year.
“Retail is a major growth driver and time and research has shown that Indian consumers are still comfortable with physical shopping when it comes to buying jewellery. We have opened around 60 stores in a few months and we are expanding this year,” said Rajan Amba, chief operating officer, Caratlane.
“At present, our focus is largely on tier-1 cities. Sixty per cent of our expansion will be in tier-1 and 40 per cent in tier-2 locations. We can open more stores in the locations where we are already present,” he said, adding the company will expand mainly through partnerships and not own stores.
Caratlane also plans to leverage Titan’s large network to scale up its business.
“Tanishq alone has a large partner network and most of them would like to expand into Caratlane. If we look at Titan Company, it has more than 700 partners within its different businesses. So, there is an ecosystem that the relationship with Titan allows us to leverage,” said Amba.
On a standalone basis Caratlane posted a revenue of Rs 421 crore in 2018-19, a growth of 44 per cent over the previous year. The losses before interest and taxes during the last fiscal narrowed to Rs 38 crore from Rs 82 crore in the previous year, according to the company’s disclosure to the investors.
“We intend to be EBITDA-positive this year and we are well on track. We have a stated objective to have a business of Rs 1,750 crore by 2023. From an annualised perspective, we are well on track,” he said.
