Plans to open more than 50 franchise stores in India in next 12-18 months.

Craftsvilla.com, an online marketplace, is looking to expand in offline market through a pan-India franchisee network. This will help the company to help their over 5,000 sellers tap customers who are not shopping online. Craftsvilla.com is looking to open more than 50 franchise stores in India in next 12-18 months.

In a month’s time, Craftsvilla’s first store may come up in Bangalore. The company then plans to head to Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Craftsvilla may also look to tap into tier-II and tier-III cities and towns.

Craftsvilla.com will extend its online brand and supply base of more than 2,00,000 products to the franchisees and get sales by redirecting customers who are unwilling to purchase online.

“We see this as a step towards quantum growth in our business by mixing offline and online business models and utilising strength of our brand, supply base, current customer base and technology to reach more and more customers in India”, say Manoj Gupta, CEO of Craftsvilla.com.

Craftsvilla.com started operations in January 2011. It sells across categories such as fashion and imitation jewellery, sarees, salwar-kurtas, bags, accessories, herbal and ayurvedic personal care products and home decor and furnishing items. Craftsvilla.com boasts of more than 30 lakh customers globally.