Jewellery start-up Melorra enters offline retail, plans 350 stores in 6 yrs

Company to invest $50 mn on foray; stores will be located at malls and high streets across India and range from 500-1,500 sq ft

Jewellery start-up Melorra has entered the brick-and-mortar retail channel by opening its first store in Bengaluru. The company said it will be launching over 350 such centres in the next six years which would be a mix of company and franchisee model. For this offline foray, the company plans to invest around $50 million over the next six years. 

“Our online growth has been exceptional this year and we have already recovered to pre-Covid. Even so we feel this is the best time to enter offline since good properties are available at more reasonable rentals. We are not entering offline for this month or this quarter but more for the long term,” said Saroja Yeramilli, Founder and CEO, Melorra.

The stores would be located at malls and high streets across India and range from 500-1,500 square feet. With tablets showcasing global fashion trends, these stores will have digitally-enabled Bliss Bars where customers can browse digital catalogues.

Melorra is primarily an online company offering over 10,000 designs in lightweight gold jewellery, but it expects 55-60 per cent of its topline to come from offline in the next 6 years.

Daily wear is the fastest growing segment of the jewellery segment currently, having grown from 37 per cent to 49 per cent of the $85 billion industry in only three years. The segment is dominated by players such as Mia by Tanishq.

Melorra had recently raised $12.5 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by Symphony Asia, Lightbox Ventures, Alteria Capital and other leading family offices. “Our ticket size has gone up 65 per cent compared to pre-Covid levels since people have started feeling comfortable shopping for more expensive jewellery items such as necklaces, heavy gold chains, bangles online,” said Yeramilli.