Tanishq relaunches gold deposit scheme

The Tata Group's jewellery brand Tanishq has revived its 'gold harvest' scheme, which it had to discontinue a few months back due to the new Companies Act which terms such schemes as public-deposit schemes.
"We have started the gold harvest scheme again last week. We had to come up with a new scheme to comply with the new law. The return now is around 12 per cent and the rate of return cannot exceed 12 per cent, which our previous scheme exceeded. We are planning a national launch soon," Titan chief executive for jewellery division CK Venkataraman told PTI.
The old golden harvest scheme was popular with customers as they had to pay equated sums for 11 months, and the company paying up the last instalment. The customer could then buy gold worth 12 months of deposits.

After clocking sales of over Rs 7,000 crore last year, the company is eyeing a growth of 20 per cent this fiscal year.
On store expansion front, Tanishq, which currently operates 166 stores, plans to add 15 more stores by the end of the current fiscal.
"We have opened only five stores so far this year against a target of about 30. We are very particular about the location. We want to make sure that we get it first time right. The new store plan has to be seen slightly in a longer time frame than by March. Some of these stores are also large...By year end we will add 15 more stores," he said adding the average cost of setting a store is Rs 1.5 crore.

Tanishq currently enjoys about 4-5 per cent of the total jewellery retailing market which is estimated to be around Rs 2,50,000 crore.
Operated by the watch firm Titan, Tanishq is one of the three jewellery brands, with the others being the premium Zoya and the mass market brand GoldPlus.
The jewellery business contributes about 70 per cent of Titan's revenue, and Tanishq accounts for a major portion of it. Almost 70 per cent of Tanishq's revenue comes from gold jewellery and 30 per cent from diamonds.