Maharashtra-based P. N. Gadgil Jewellers has served generations of customers since 1958 when Dajikaka Gadgil took over the business started in Sangli by Ganesh Narayan Gadgil. Dajikaka expanded its presence across Maharashtra including Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Thane and Vile Parle. Following the footsteps of his ancestors, Saurabh Vidyahar Gadgil, Managing Director, P.N. Gadgil Jewellers, has been instrumental in taking the brand overseas. Gadgil talks about the journey of the brand and its future plans.
What kind of jewellery do you offer?
We sell diamond, gold, and silver jewellery. The sales ratio for the three stands at 30:65:5, respectively. Contemporary designs are very popular now a days. Being the wedding season, bridal jewellery is the highest selling category. We offer some 1,000 categories. The silver jewellery is priced between Rs 100 and Rs 40,000; diamond jewellery ranges from Rs 5,000 to a crore; and gold jewellery falls in the price bracket of Rs 3,000 to Rs 30 lakh.
For silver jewellery, we have a sub-brand called Silver Style for which we have kiosks. At present, there are 20 kiosks.
How many manufacturing facilities do you have?
As of now,we have two manufacturing facilities in Mumbai and Pune employing 500 craftsmen. The designs are made in-house only. Apart from that, we also have contract workers in cities like Jaipur, Kolkata, etc. Over 100,000 jewellery pieces are manufactured by us every year.
Tell us about your retail footprint and the store formats.
Today we have over 14 company-owned stores in Maharashtra (Pune,Mumbai,Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Latur, and Nagpur) and 1 in California,USA at Silicon Valley.
Our stores vary between 3,500 to 20,000 sq.ft. We have two formats for Indian stores spreading across 3,500 sq.ft. (in smaller towns like Latur) and 7,500 sq.ft. (in metros). The California store was opened in 2008 and spreads over 2,500 sq.ft. We have two stores of 20,000 sq.ft. in Pune. One is on Lakshmi Road (our first store in 1958) and the other at Hadapsar which was opened in 2012 (located on the sugar belt of Pune).
The per store investment in India varies between Rs 35 crore and Rs 40 crore, excluding the real estate cost. Our Silver Style kiosks draw an investment of Rs 16 lakh to Rs 20 lakh including the stock and cover an area of 150-300 sq.ft.
We spend over 25 crore every year on marketing activities.
What are your future plans?
We plan to venture into new states by 2015, probably in MP, Karnataka, AP, and Gujarat. Our brand has a strong connect with the Maharashtrian community so whichever state we expand into will have that connect as it will become easier for us to target the right customers. We will hold exhibitions to get the market response and take take a final call while moving out of Maharashtra.
As far as overseas expansion is concerned, we are looking at opening another store overseas likely at Los Angeles or New Jersey in 2015 with an investment of USD 5 million.
