Tier-II Gili’s new focus

Gili, the first diamond jewelry brand of India, is now on a mission to open 50 EBOs by the end

of this year in Tier II cities across India. The EBOs, known as Gili World will mainly follow two retail formats of COCO stores (company owned and company operated) and FOFO stores (franchisee owned and franchisee operated). The company is currently exploring new locations and potential markets while targeting cities such as Aurangabad, Pune, Nagpur and Bangalore for its upcoming stores. The investment is facilitated through internal accruals.

Rahul Vira, CEO, Gili India feels EBOs are a new territory and in the branded jewelry segment, there is immense growth potential. Gili is a pioneer in this category and enjoys a big chunk of the market share – about 46 per cent in shop-in-shop. So the next logical step for expansion and growth would be to capitalize on the EBO format.

Initially, Gili faced a lot of challenge to be accepted as traditionally in India, women did not wear much diamond jewelry and the notion of 18 carat gold jewelry was completely unheard of. However, having embarked on its shop-in-shops format around 15 years ago, Gili currently has a pan-India presence through 16 operational EBOs and 145 shop-in-shops with major retail outlets such as Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Westside, Just In Vogue and Landmark. Gili’s existing COCO stores are located at Select Citywalk, Delhi; The Great India Place, Noida; Mantri Square and Garuda Mall, Bangalore, and R-City and Inorbit, Mumbai. Its FOFO stores are present at Hisar, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Nagpur and Satna. All their partners have strong local networks and knowledge of the catchments, making the entire business more personalized.