Reliance Brands Ltd, a unit of Reliance Industries, is looking for alliances in the “beauty” and children’s wear segments with international brands.According to Darshan Mehta, President and CEO, Reliance Brands, these are the two gaps that he intends to plug soon. The company, currently, has partnered with some brands like GAS, Brooks Bros, Diesel, Ermenegildo Zegna, Hamleys, Iconix, Kenneth Cole, Paul & Shark, Quiksilver, Roxy, Steve Madden, Thomas Pink, Reiss, Superdry, Dune and Timberland. In an interview to BusinessLine, Mehta – who was in the city for the launch of Hamleys – talks about alliances and entry into new segments, luxury or premium brand retailing and the e-commerce strategy. Edited excerpts:

Right now are there any new areas in the fashion category that you may explore?

Currently, Reliance Brands is into fashion, except Hamleys, which is into toys.

We define fashion as everything that fits on your body, other than jewellery.

One area where we don’t have a presence and are keen on is beauty. Beauty would include colour cosmetics, fragrances and so on.

Beauty as a category in a fashion wardrobe is increasing in India.

The second category that we are looking at is children’s clothing.

In beauty what are the segments you are looking at?

Colour cosmetics are a fast growing category that includes lipsticks, nail-polish eye-makers and so on. And the other category is fragrances. These two go together.

Are you in talks with anybody?

We are scanning for global relevant brands, that is, the brand will require some consumer knowledge in India.

So are you looking at an e-commerce foray too?

E-commerce is a channel of sale. We are brand representatives and are channel agnostic.

You can buy the brand either at a mall or at an airport counter or e-com site.

We will look to explore every channel possible, if I know my customer is going there.

Today, Hamleys (toys) is also available on Amazon and Flipkart. Steve Madden is there on five e-com sites.

Increasingly as the customer in India evolves to buy through e-com, we also want a presence there. For me, e-com is like a virtual mall.

But are you looking at a company owned e-com site like an abof.com?

Not from Reliance Brands. We are not a channel player. We are brand players.

You are mostly bringing in international mainstream to luxury brands here. But e-commerce in India is a discount-driven model. So, when selling such brands online what is the pricing strategy and portfolio segregation you follow?

Firstly, that is not restricted to a luxury or a premium brand or in India only. Pricing conflict exists for mainstream brands too.

But, that is not linked to e-commerce only. Managing pricing conflict across channels is an ongoing challenge for brands.

In our case, only seven of our 18 brands are on e-commerce. For example, luxury brands like Thomas Pink do not sell on e-com. And less than 5 per cent of our sale is from online.

Having said that, let me tell you we are conscious (of pricing conflict) and are talking to our channel partners to ensure that the brands do not go very frequently on promotions.

Because, when you are constantly promoting (discounting) at some level it erodes the brand value, which is true for luxury and mainstream brands too.

My own feeling is that promotions and discounts are going to go down.

Increasingly, the investors in these e-com companies will start talking about profitability.

How do you see sale of luxury brands through online channels taking shape here in India?

Brands which are only launching online only, in my sense, may not be doing that well as those that have both online and off-line presence.

Unless the brand is off-line, the ability to experience the brand is not there.

Globally, there are online channels like “net-a-porter” that changed the understanding.

Before that started, people never believed luxury could be sold online. So going by that example, I think, even luxury will find a channel of sale online in India.

What we don’t realise often is every channel has its own customer and each channel has its own nuance. All of these have to be managed appropriately.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW