Get Happily Married to the Brand

Specialty retail is a growing industry in India. Brands are coming up with distinctive models and fast taking a lead in this industry. Buzzing with out-of-the-box ideas and delivering novel concepts to the customer and corporate sector, Happily Unmarried was ‘anti-established’ in 2013. The brand has a widespread presence across Delhi and cities like Mumbai, Chandigarh and Kolkata. Rajat Tuli, Co-founder and Director, Happily Unmarried sheds light on the brand’s growth journey.

Enlighten about the presence of Happily Unmarried.

Happily Unmarried is currently present in 17 cities across India through 12 Exclusive Brand Outlets (EBOs) and about 60 Multi-Brand Outlets (MBOs). Happily Unmarried is a youth life style brand. We are the pioneer of the ‘desi cool merchandise trend’ that has got popular over the last couple of years. 

Online retail has taken a great surge presently. What are your views on online and offline retail?

We have been in the offline space since the beginning. We started with retailing through an offline store. Offline stores provide the customers a touch and feel experience. For some people shopping is joy and even therapeutic. Offline stores are an essential need for these customers. While online business will expand, we believe that offline stores will continue to grow as well.

What are your expansion plans?

We are looking forward to opening 12 stores per annum.

What is the USP of you brand?

Our products make you smile. We do music festivals; work with corporate sector when they want to do some interesting work. Lately we have been doing a lot of projects involving branding, communication, interiors, marketing all rolled into one.

When did you start franchising? How many outlets do you have presently?
We started franchising last year and have currently opened four stores. We have a total of 12 stores, of which four are franchisee-run.

What are the challenges in this industry?

Apart from high cost of rental space, there are not too many challenges in our industry. Unfortunately there is no short term solution to this problem. We are hopeful that things will get more realistic in the coming years.

What sort of training and support do you provide your franchisees?

Since a lot of our products are based on ideas and concepts, some amount of training is required. We take our franchisees through a comprehensive orientation. The staff at franchise stores is also trained by us. We do periodic assessment and evaluation.

Franchise facts