One of India’s leading leisure retailers, Odyssey India Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited, is now trying to tie-up with premium international and luxury pen brands. Commenting on this development, T S Ashwin, managing director, Odyssey India Ltd. told IndiaRetailing, “This year we are launching our foray into premium writing instruments. We are tying up with many international premium and luxury pen brands exclusively for India. One store each in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai is what will come up by Jan 2010 and another 6-7 stores will open over the next year.”
At present Odyssey India Ltd has 46 stores in different formats, and it is planning to increase the store count to 60. “We will be expanding our footprint in select malls and high street locations apart from increasing our presence at airports. railway stations, IT parks and residential townships. Our 46 operational stores occupy about 2.6 lakh square feet of area,” Ashwin said.
“The next few stores are coming up in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi. We are working on a mix of large and express stores across these cities, with 10 locations spanning across 1 lakh square feet of confirmed projects and an equal number of more stores over the next year. We plan to take our store count to approx 60 stores spread across 4.5 lakh square feet area,” he further revealed.
In August 2008, the leisure retailer diversified its retailing business by opening two The Eyewear Store outlets in Hyderabad and Mumbai. “We have scheduled expansion of our speciality eyewear stores in Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore this year and additional stores in Hyderabad and Mumbai over the next year, taking the total to 10 outlets,” Ashwin informed.
— Diwakar Kumar
