Akbarally's

A century of trust with loads of innovation added early on when the market for organised retail was not even conceived, the legacy of India's oldest department store that brought with it the idea of convenient shopping under one roof - Akbarally's is a name that begs no introduction.

It was in early 1897 that a young man by the name of Akbarally Ebrahimji thought of buying a 30-square-foot space near Gunbow Street in Mumbai and start with a department store. The difference that he brought in with the store was that there was nothing available on bargain. A fixed price was set for everything. Back then, the store was called Akbarally Ebrahimji and it dealt primarily with toiletries and a few food items. The initial journey was started by the current chairman Fakruddin T Khorakiwala's uncle. Khorakiwala's father, Taherbhai Ebrahimji, became a part of the business a couple of years later when Ebrahimji expired. The junior Ebrahimji spread the store to three more locations in South Mumbai. Apart from looking after the three stores, Ebrahimji was involved in importing tea from Darjeeling. He later went to bring out a pesticide called Akshir and a balm called Akbar Balm. The father and son duo (Taherbhai Ebrahimji and Fakruddin Khorakiwala) went ahead with expanding their business, which led to Khorakiwala giving up his ambition of pursuing the field of law. In between, along with two of his colleagues, Khorakiwala was also involved in marketing of the brand Amul and establishing it across the country.

Playing pioneer
In 1956, Khorakiwala bought a 10,000-square-foot restaurant called Monginis at Fort in Mumbai. Being a visionary, Khorakiwala went on to convert the space into a huge department store. Says Khorakiwala, “When I discussed the idea with a few prominent Muslim friends of mine who were into politics, they asked me to refrain from doing so. According to them, when other British department stores were closing down, it would not be a viable business option for us to venture into something like that. They also asked me to change the name of the store if at all I decided to go ahead with my plans. The reason they asked me to change the name was because of the Hindu-Muslim dissent going on then; Muslims were perceived to be a part of Pakistan. I insisted on retaining our identity as Akbarally's, as we were good patrons in India and would always continue to be so.” Thus was laid the foundation of Akbarally's.

The philosophy on which Akbarally's worked since inception was to offer the convenience of shopping for everything under one roof. Says Khorakiwala, “When we started in 1956, there was no organised retailing in India. Akbarally's was known to offer convenient shopping under one roof – we had departments for saris, jewellery, accessories, fabrics, etc. The store also had a restaurant attached to it.” A few years down the line, the restaurant shut shop. Khorakiwala recounts, “We introduced espresso coffee, which was available for Rs 1.20. A lot of lawyers would come in and have their meetings there, and these would go on for an hour or more at times. We found early on that the restaurant was making a loss and hence we decided to shut shop.”

Further on, Khorakiwala introduced the concept of customised footwear. In his words, “I have always been an innovative person and I am not afraid of taking risks. In my endeavour to offer something valuable and new to my customers, I introduced a special section wherein footwear was made according to the person's actual foot size. The cost for a pair came up to roughly around Rs 150. Footwear then was available for Rs 40-45. This again did not work well and we had to close down this section after a period of time.” In spite of facing hurdles with nearly every enthusiastic idea that he came up with, Khorakiwala did not stop.

Akbarally's was the first store to introduce the concept of having a live Santa at the store. Adds Khorakiwala, “Elders receiving an invitation for a party, function, etc., was a common thing, but children were always left out. I decided to introduce something special for children, and that is when I thought of having a Santa at the store and sending invitations to the little ones to meet Santa. The invitations were addressed to the child from Santa himself. For Diwali, we introduced the concept of Chacha Deepak.”