The Rs. 70 crore retail chain Ebony, is looking for prime real estate property to set up stores in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The Company was willing to start operations in these cities once it gets a good location at a reasonable price. Its expansion in the south of the country has been a subject for speculation by market watches. Being a North-based retail chain, awareness about the Ebony brand is very low in Chennai. In fact, in a pre-launch dipstick survey in Chennai, It merged that only three per cent of Chennaiites were aware of Ebony retail brand. However, the ratio rose to 28 per cent post launch, attributed to the fact that the store was located on the busy Nungambakkam Street.

Kohli admits that it is going to be a tough task to create loyal customers in a city which has a highly competitive retail environment with the big four players (LifeStyle, Globus, Shoppers' Stop, Westside) already entrenched themselves in the market.

As of now, Ebony registers an average footfall around 1000 (between 99 and 1200) during the weekdays and around 2000 (between 1800 and 2400) during the weekends. With a projected turnover of around Rs. 14 crore, the company expects the Chennai store to break even in two years. To achieve this, Ebony has adopted a shop-in-shop format and has formed alliances with several retailers such as Vivek's, Qwikys, Natalia, Airtel, Sify, Musicworld among others.