Aerens expands speciality malls

Real estate development company, the Aerens Group, is expanding its speciality malls business. Last October it inaugurated its first jewellery specialty mall -- the Gold Souk -- in Gurgaon.

The second in the series will be the Wedding Souk scheduled to open during the peak wedding season this November at Pitampura in Delhi. More Gold and Wedding Souks in Ludhiana, Jaipur, Kochi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai are in the planning stage at Aerens.

Says Aerens group chairman Surendra Gupta: "The first Gold Souk has registered phenomenal success in the last 10 months and so we plan to take it across the country."

Set up at an investment of Rs 55 crore (Rs 550 million), the Gurgaon Gold Souk is operating at 75 per cent occupany levels. Its director Gaurav Gupta claims the mall has already broken even, "and the season is yet to begin," he adds.

The mall is clearly designed to give maximum mileage to the jewellers. The executives say that the mall does not mix business with pleasure and ensures that there are no eating joints or other distractions save the coffee kiosks at Gold Souk.

There is, nevertheless, a separate food court on the top floor. The lack of distraction have helped Gold Souk boast of healthy conversion rate -- about 60 to 70 per cent compared to the 6-10 per cent at other malls, claim executives.

Taking the "specialised" mall concept a step further, the Aerens group, in collaboration with Amit Bumb, a jeweller, has set up a large format store called Avenue Montaigne at the Gold Souk.

Claiming to be the largest branded jewellery store in India, Avenue Montaigne stocks 50 leading Indian brands like Asmi, Nakshatra, Sangini, D'damas and Adora besides international ones like Celeste (UK), Hammer Plus (Germany) and Pierre Cardin.

The second showroom of Avenue Montaigne that is coming up at the Wedding Souk will be followed by one at Noida and another at Greater Kailash, says Bumb. "By next year we will begin targeting tourist places abroad like Dubai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong kong," he adds.

Meanwhile, D'damas and Adora jewellery brands are planning to create high-value brand zones in the 10,000 sq feet store. It is learnt that even DTC, the marketing arm of De-Beers, is planning to hire Italian designers to design an exclusive corner for its range at Avenue Montaigne.