The Hindu Business Line : Raymond shuts down Be: stores; plans re-positioning of brand

Mumbai, Oct. 22 Raymond Ltd is withdrawing its designer-led Be: brand of stores with intentions of re-launching it without the ‘niche’ tag. The textile company is in the process of evaluating its prêt-a-porter brand and its association with designers, with plans of shedding its exclusive image in the market.

“The company has already shut down its stores across cities such as Mumbai and Delhi and there are plans to take the brand on a larger scale across the country. “Be: will cease to be a niche brand,” said a top Raymond official.

With intentions of having a pan-India presence for Be:, Raymond plans to have a different target audience for the brand and is currently undergoing a re-positioning exercise for the same.

“Be: will be made into a more relevant brand and will address a wider population unlike in the past where the brand was meant to address a niche set of people,” the official added. There are plans to bring the brand a few notches down the price and audience strata that it previously stood for. “Be: is not going to be a mass brand and at the same time we are evaluating whether we would like to have designers associated with it,” said the official.

Mr Nabankar Gupta, Ex-Group President of Raymond, says, “In my view there was nothing wrong with the Be: brand but there are a number of women’s wear brands that Raymond already has such as Color Plus, and Park Avenue today could now well become apart of Be:.”

In 2001, Raymond made a foray into women’s wear with Be: — its first pret-a- porter line of designer clothing. At that point of time, almost 50 Be: boutiques had been planned in six cities across the country and even one in Dubai.

The Be: retail stores stocked apparel and accessories from designers such as Priyadarshini Rao, Raghavendra Rathore, Rohit Bal and Rajesh Pratap Singh priced from Rs 600 to Rs 6,000.

Added Mr Aniruddha Deshmukh, Ex-Executive Director, Be: and currently President (Retail & FMCG), Raymond Ltd: “The Be: brand does exist and currently we are looking at what we can do with it.”

With a comprehensive women’s wear strategy, of late Raymond has been steadily increasing its ready-to- wear women’s wear portfolio by stretching its existing brands such as Park Avenue into this category.

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