Hafele to have 100 stores by 2016

Hafele has aggressive plans to take its store count to 100 in India by 2016 end. At present Hafele India has around 60 franchise outlets covering three traditional formats – the Hafele Design Studios which display all our product functionalities; the Hafele Kitchen Studios which showcase three or more different types of kitchen layouts with different product applications; and the Hafele Compacts which are smaller formats that showcase brand’s fast moving products.

Jurgen Wolf, Managing Director, Hafele India Pvt Ltd says: “In the coming two-three years we want to increase the base of our traditional formats to 100 outlets (by end of 2016) with more focus on the Design Studios and Kitchen Studios.”

Apart from this, the brand is now actively focusing on opening a more contemporary franchise format to actively penetrate the kitchen market in India. Hafele sees a huge scope in this market and generates a chunk of its business from product line of kitchen components. The strategy is to partner with existing kitchen retailers who already have small showrooms (typically starting from 500 sq ft) in focused markets, displaying two or more kitchens with Hafele’s components and displays. Hafele is also willing to take this format to new kitchen retailers who can use the design guidelines and know-how to create their showrooms.  The nature of this partnership would be such that Hafele would be an ‘endorsing brand’ for such small kitchen partners with necessary investment in product displays, marketing and operational know-how. Hafele will also contribute by way of its shop design know-how in case of new partners.

Wolf further says: “The challenge remains to find such like-minded market partners who either already have retail set-ups in focused locations or new partners who probably need our expertise in creating such retail set-ups.  At the moment, we are actively looking out for such market partners.”