Pothys, a chain of textile showrooms in South India, has forayed into gold retailing and has set up its first store at Tirunelveli. The new business house which has been named Pothys Swarna Mahal (incorporated in March 2021) will be a subsidiary of Pothys. And in the next five years, the firm intends to have more such stores right next to its textile showrooms.
“We currently have showrooms in places like Chennai, Madurai, Salem and Coimbatore among others and the game plan is to have a jewellery business at all these places. But we will do this slowly over the next few years. We will look at stand-alone outlets and at places where space is a constraint we will accommodate the gold business within our stores,” said Ramesh Pothy, Managing Director of Pothys who will be running the gold business along with his brother Ashok. When asked about the investments that have been earmarked for this business, he said that a substantial amount has been pumped in but refused to get into the statistics.
He further said, “We should have started this ten years ago. We had plans then but now it has become a reality. We feel that we are still not too late to enter this market.” “Jewellery and textile are inter-related and those who come shopping for clothes for weddings also look for jewels,” he added. To a query on whether this is the appropriate time to venture into this business, he said that there is a demand for gold and the business is growing. “Gold is always an investment for the lady in the house as its value keeps appreciating. Even if there is a crisis, gold can be pledged and converted into cash quickly,” Mr. Ramesh Pothy said.
