Tanishq expects revived scheme to rebound by 2018-19

Jewellery brand plans to add 25-30 stores every year

Tata Group's Tanishq jewellery brand is expecting the Golden Harvest Scheme to rebound to its earlier levels of 30 per cent of its business by the financial year 2018.

According to the company, Tanishq, a brand under Titan, is looking at add around 25-30 stores every year in the near future.

The scheme, which used to be a major revenue churner for the company, has affected Titan's performance recently. Besides, implementation of the new Companies Act a few years ago also impacted the scheme after all gold purchase schemes were brought under the purview of public deposits. 

The Act further restricted companies from offering a return beyond 12 per cent to deposit holders. It also fixed the time period for the offer to 12 months, and capped the total amount of deposits to 25 per cent of the company's net worth.

"Owing to the changes in the regulation, the company had to relaunch the scheme almost two years ago and it is coming back slowly, but surely and it has taken us two years, because the rules were changed with certain limits being placed on how much we could collect and how much future payout we could make to the customer," said Rajan Amba, General Manager and Head Retail (Tanishq), Titan Company.

"Obviously there was a big impact on the company, but it is rebounding now and by next year it will be back to normal again," he added.

While he refused to reveal the current status of this business, he said that the scheme used to account for around 30 per cent of the company's business at one point. 

"We hope we will reach the same level by 2018-19," he said.

It has two jewellery purchase schemes -- Golden Harvest and Swarnanidhi-Gold Booking Scheme -- under which, a jeweller collects a certain amount of deposit for a few months from the customers, thereby helping them plan their purchases with an extra benefit of discounts.

At present, Tanishq has 204 exclusive boutiques in 118 cities, making it India's first and largest jewellery retail showroom chain. However, the jewellery retail major has saturated its presence in most cities and is looking expand further.