Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Aug 11, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Aug 11, 2005 |
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Marketing
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Retailing Sara Lee Apparel to grow retail presence Purvita Chatterjee
Mumbai , Aug. 10 Sara Lee Apparel (India) Ltd, which entered the country a year ago with its Hanes ComfortWear for men, intends to ramp up its retail presence. From the current 2,500 retailers the company plans to increase its reach to 4,000 retail outlets in the next five years. Speaking to Business Line, Mr Shekhar Tewari, General Manager, Marketing & Sales, Sara Lee Apparel, said, "We should be able to grow easily since we are starting from a zero base. But it may take a couple of years to make profit. At the moment we are evaluating more stores.'' Sara Lee Apparel has decided to adopt an FMCG model of retailing. According to Mr Tewari, selling innerwear is closest to selling packaged food, where distribution, merchandising and shop displays play a critical role. "Innerwear is mainly an impulse purchase made by the customer," he says. Sara Lee Apparels does not believe in selling its wares only at the upmarket retails chains. "Today, almost 15 per cent of the sales comes from the mom-and-pop stores and there is a space crunch,'' explains Mr Tewari about the complexities of selling an innerwear brand. The company, which has outsourced the manufacturing of its brand, believes in having price parity across the other markets. Mr Tewari says, "The product, packaging and pricing has been customised for the Indian market.'' Estimating the innerwear market to grow at nearly 8 per cent, Sara Lee with its Hanes brand competes with the likes of Indian brands, such as Rupa and VIP. Another imported inner wear brand - Jockey - is present through a licensing agreement. Meanwhile, there are also plans to bring in the rest of its brands, such as Hanes her Way, Champion, Playtex, Dim and WonderBra. "We are still looking at the market and depending on how the Hanes brand fares we might bring in the others,'' adds Mr Tewari. Having appointed McCann Erickson as its ad agency, the company has been low key in its advertising. "At the moment we are visible in a couple of sports channels only," says Mr Tewari. Sara Lee Apparels has also appointed Hungama.Com to explore the non-conventional experiential marketing. .
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