Greetings and gifting company Archies is set to ink a deal with Reliance Retail, which will involve Archies setting up shop-in-shop stores within Reliance Retail’s Time Out outlets.

“Apart from Reliance Retail, we are looking at a series of similar tie-ups within modern trade. We are looking at newer avenues to reach out to consumers,” Archies CMD Anil Moolchandani said. Facing stiff competition from e-cards, Archies, which started off as a greetings-card company, has been diversifying into various related businesses such as corporate gifting, fashion accessories and apparel.

As part of its diversification plans, the company has inked a distribution tie-up with UK-based Carte Blanche Greetings to distribute and sell greetings cards, gifts, stationery and apparel. The deal with Carte Blanche is two-pronged. The distribution deal is for gifting Carte Blanche products under the ‘me to you’ brand.

Also, a manufacturing and licensing arrangement has been struck for cards, stationery and apparel. Carte Blanche commercial director Richard Edmondson said global retail sales of the ‘me to you’ brand would exceed $800 million in fiscal ’08. It has been speculated in the past that Archies could consider selling out its business or offloading equity to other partners.

Denying any such move, Mr Moolchandani said: “We will never consider selling out the business.” He, however, said the company was keen on tapping newer business streams within the gifting arena with global firms, adding that Archies was in talks with various potential partners.

EMAIL THIS NEWS COMMENTS No comments yet