Comments
Oxford Book Store which houses the Cha Bar is expected to spin off the tea retail concept as a standalone store brand.
At present, most of the Cha Bars are located within the premises of the 26-odd Oxford Book Stores but there is a possibility of these existing as a separate entity in the future.
Priti Paul, Director, Oxford Book Store, said, “Cha Bar is a strong brand and can have standalone stores today. There have been enquiries from franchises based abroad for Cha Bar. But we have yet to take a call on whether we should take the franchise route for tea retailing with Cha Bar.”
Cha Bar as a concept was introduced by Priti Paul in 2010. Mumbai Oxford Book Store at Churchgate had the first store. As the Apeejay Surrendra Group, which owns the Oxford Book Store, is already in the business of tea, opening a Cha Bar was expected to be a forward integration of the group’s business into tea retailing.
“The Apeejay Group is already the third largest producer of tea and we know how to sell tea to Indians,” added Paul. The Group is also selling its own brand of Typhoo teas at the Oxford Book Stores.
Menu revamp
Cha Bar is now revamping its menu with items such as tea cakes and street food to make it more attractive in the F&B segment. The soon-to-be-launched 5,000 sq ft Oxford Book Store in Delhi next year will see an enhanced Cha Bar menu with almost 1,000 sq ft assigned to the tea retail section.
“Cha Bar contributes nearly 10 per cent to revenues of every Oxford Book Store and comprises about 5-7 per cent of the company’s overall revenues today,” says Paul.
Meanwhile, with book retail remaining a challenging segment, Oxford Book Store has been trying to draw in clientele based on events such as book reading apart from the Cha Bar. “Retail is generally challenging. As the price of a book is fixed we have to do well as a retailer, and also have to careful about rentals,” said Paul, claiming to have achieved break-even at the store level.
Non-book revenues from channels such as online sales, school text books, music and gifts contribute nearly 25 per cent to its revenues today.
Industry observes feel that it would be prudent to retain Cha Bar as part of the Oxford Book Store. “Book reading is already under threat today with the i-Pad and Kindle taking over. It would better for the bookstore to integrate it with tea retailing as it would be difficult to make a success of both these formats independently ,” said Raghu B Viswanath, Managing Director, Vertebrand, a brand value advisory.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.