Our Major Growth Is Coming from Tier II and Tier III Cities: Puneet Gulati
Barista Coffee Company is the pioneer of coffee culture in India. The Barista Café chain of espresso bars delivers a truly Italian coffee experience in a warm, friendly and relaxed environment. It provides a comfortable place for people to unwind over interesting conversations and a hot cup of coffee.
In conversation with Puneet Gulati, CEO, Barista, talks about the scope in tier II and Tier III cities, importance of collaboration and much more...
Focusing on Tier II and Tier III cities
The major exposure that we are creating in tier II and tier III cities is via the franchising model. A lot of interested businessmen who have the flair of driving a coffee shop are reaching out to us. Our hunch, our experiences in the last 2-4 years is that the interested businessmen who are opening our stores in tier II and tier III cities have wide local knowledge and with that local knowledge, comes the kind of experience we bring to the table. With that, we are spreading our wings to create more and more outlets in cities.
Collaboration is Essential
We believe that the customers, who come to us, expect more than just plain coffee. So the whole idea is to provide a good holistic experience around a coffee shop. And that can only be possible by, where we bring experts from various walks of life in the art, culture and creativity domain. We are in touch with budding writers and one such example is of Neel Mullick who has launched his book “Dark Blossoms” in collaboration with Barista. Apart from this, we are also getting into photography, enabling budding photographers to use barista as the launch pad to showcase their work.
We are also getting into art. We have reached out to various artists across the country with the collaboration of a third party partner and their artwork.
Moreover, just like the cookies and chocolates which are available at our store for purchase, customers can purchase the artwork from our stores itself, promoting budding artists.
Expansion Plans
We are a venture of about 210 stores as of now and we intend to be about 250 stores by the end of March and our short term goal for 2-3 years is for 500 stores. It’s going to be a mix of company-owned and franchise run stores. Currently, our exposure is to 47 cities in India and major growth is coming from tier II and tier III cities. Our metro strategy is to strengthen our presence in various malls and marketplaces in the high street. And also a very important element of our brand expansion is to reach institutional sites and more.
