The store has recently launched a brand called Cotton Cottage, which is a natural cotton fabric product and offers a complete range of products for men and women. Dalal says: “The whole idea is to have a good and affordable range of well designed and well crafted products available for our customers.”

In other segments too, the store has an extensive range of products on offer. In fashion and accessories, the store, besides an array of ethnic silver jewellery, offers an exquisite collection of oxidised silver, pearls, lacquer and kundan, most of them are private labels. The segment also offers leather and travel accessories, footwear and scarves and ties.

In personal care segment, the store focuses on natural, eco-friendly personal care products for skin and hair care. The store claims to be a favoured destination for aroma therapy or spa products. Sourced from Assam and Darjeeling, its beverage offerings include green tea, earl grey, chamomile tea, orange pekoe and second flush in tea ranges, whereas dried herbs and spices include thyme, pepper, chilly flakes, oregano and basil. Olives and olive oils, vinegar and mustards form an essential part of The Bombay Store gourmet food section.

Home accessories and soft furnishing are the two segments the store always stocks well. “Home accessories and soft furnishing section is definitely something which is more popular. We are known more for our home accessories,” stressed Dalal. He says that the home accessories segment contributes around 55 per cent to its total revenue, followed by soft furnishing and fashion and fashion accessories with 25 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Its home accessories segment includes products like lamps and shades, artifacts, candles, candle stands, tablewear and kitchenwear. The soft furnishing segment includes bed linen, table and kitchen linen, wall hangings and curtains.

Expansion route

The store is very choosy in product offerings and so its expansion plan. “Over the next one-and-a-half year period, we are focusing more on western and southern India and our focus would be to try and open stores at airports if possible. We are exploring all the options of opening stores at airports. As far as our current plan is concerned, we are targeting some high street locations, and then at a later stage, we plan to get into malls,” asserts Dalal.

With the believe that malls tend to be more for branded apparel and merchandise of segments including fashion, accessories and footwear, Dalal comments: "I do not think in India we still have so many right kind of malls. There are some few which one can think of as a proper shopping mall; otherwise most of them are like shopping centres. Our first foray into a shopping centre was at Inorbit, Malad, Mumbai and we have just signed up in Inorbit, Vashi. We are trying to test out a mall model because in a mall, we cannot have large spaces and we have to be very particular about these things".



Rationale behind restricted expansion

Rental is always a factor the company considers and prefers staying at home with expansion in close locality. Surprisingly, this Mumbai-based company, after 102 years of operation, has opened only eight stores till date — three stores in Mumbai, two stores in Pune and one store each in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Goa.

“I think the best thing that happened to us is that we did not go for aggressive expansion, because I think who ever had gone for aggressive expansions at some point is finding it difficult to survive at this point of time. We did not want to sign up properties in ridiculous entrances and malls, and shopping centres have only come up over the last 2-3 years. We are not a mass brand. We are not something which one needs in every nook and corner of a city or in every other mall in the country. We are selective about wherever we go. So we have to have a selective growth process."

Stores doing well

“Definitely the home store, home city is always the best, and our flagship store in Bengaluru is always the best because it has been existing for a long period of time and is well-known to people across India and the world. Moreover, all our newer stores are also fetching impressive responses,” says Dalal.

Concepts in the pipeline

“We are working on bringing newer design for accessories that can be put inside the home. We will open six more stores with an investment of Rs 4-5 million for each store over a nine month period and our preference is more towards high-street destinations. We would be doing business of Rs 600 million by 2010,” says Dalal.