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TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Chennai: London-based
toy retailer Ham-leys opened their Chennai store in the recently
opened Express Avenue mall on Thursday. This is the second Hamleys store
in the country—the first was opened last year in Mumbai. The
250-year-old retailer, which has been brought to India under a franchise
agreement with Reliance Retail, is planning 20 stores in 14 cities over
the next seven years. "We will invest Rs 125 crore for this expansion,"
said Bijou Kurien, president-CEO of Reliance Retail (lifestyle). The
11,000 sq ft store is smaller than its Mumbai counterpart at 21,000 sq
ft. "We decided to pilot for a year with these two sizes—one large and
one small. Then we
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will expand accordingly The average Hamleys is likely to be between 15,000 sq ft and 20,000 sq ft, no smaller," said Kurien.
While
40% of the merchandise is imported, the rest is sourced indegenously.
"The staff are trained at the Hamleys Academy in London and work there
for sometime before coming to the Indian stores," said Kurien. The Rs
1,500-crore toy market in India is largely unorganised both in
manufacturing and retail. Organised players like Mattel, Funskool and Odyssey's Toyopia account for around Rs 200 crore. "In the past couple of years the organised market is growing much more • rapidly, at around 20% to 25% when compared to the unorganised market, which is growing at 10% to 15%," said Kurien.
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