From Multibrand to Franchisee: Our Pandora Journey
The Growth of Pandora
In 2008, the possibility of branding Pandora within our stores was announced. We immediately seized the opportunity by building shop-in-shops in our St. Maarten and St. Thomas locations. Soon after, all of our Boolchand’s locations were upgraded with new Pandora furniture and refreshed branding.
Expansion and Restructuring
In 2009, we further expanded our partnership with Pandora by opening our first concept store in the Caribbean, on the island of St. Maarten. This was only the 17th Pandora store in the Americas. With its opening in October of that year, The Boolchand Group joined the then short list of early believers in the brand and its potential. Following the success of our first location, we committed to opening stores on each of the islands on which we then operated. Within the next two years, we opened five Pandora concept stores on the islands and a sixth in Miami International Mall with great success. By 2018, we had doubled that number to 12 Pandora stores in the region.
Adaptation and Innovation
Over the years, our partnership with Pandora transformed and so did our strategies around trade. We learned to adjust our management structure and to adapt to a new way of doing business, focused on key performance indicators, target-setting and transparency. Seeing the value in these concepts, we quickly embraced them and have been fortunate to enjoy the success that has followed.
Lessons Learned
When we began with Pandora in 2005, our family had been in the retail business for 75 years. It’s been inspiring to realize that even after multiple generations in this industry our organization can quickly adapt to changing times and circumstances. As we continue to grow and expand, we’ll make the necessary investments and continue to take calculated risks. There is no doubt in our minds that Pandora has made us better retailers. And over 90 years later, this is still only the beginning!
