Hitting the tip of the ice-berg (Cont.....)

- Narayan K T(Mumbai)

Thanks boutique - Ashish Chordia’s fashion destination at Worli – houses super premium labels like Chloe, Dolce and Gabbana, Seven Jeans to name a few. The premise has six stores and caters to an average of 60 customers per week. And according to market sources, the average spend in this boutique is over a lakh.

The Danish super-premium shoe brand ECCO is set to add three concept stores and four shop-in-shops (SIS) in India by 2006. Priced between Rs 6,000 to Rs 25,000 its Indian subsidiary is targeting to sell over 150,000 pairs in the country.

And as the market size increases by the day, a host of new players like Clarks, Silversea Cruises etc have made their foray in India and are wasting no time in setting up their shops to grab a share of the pie.

Changing lifestyles, rising aspiration levels, instinctive buying attitude backed by increasing disposable income are factors that most believe is and will fuel growth in the luxury and lifestyle categories in India in the years to come.

Identifying the market potential, the UK-based luxury footwear brand Clarks – one of the largest footwear companies in the world - recently forayed in India through a marketing tie-up with the Mumbai-based Lifestyle Asia Pvt Ltd.

Through exclusive Clarks boutiques besides its Lifestyle footwear stores, the Indian partner also plans to explore business opportunities through other multi-brand outlets retailing luxury and lifestyle products across the country.

“Clarks range of luxury footwear will be targeted at the socio-economic class, the A and A plus market segments, which comprises of the upmarket and well travelled individuals. We are targeting over a lakh pairs in terms of sales in the first year of operations in the country and would also invest considerably in marketing and promotional activities over the next five years in India,” said Clarks’ international director Sarah Lynch.

According to Nilesh Hada, director of Lifestyle Asia Pvt Ltd, which distributes and markets niche and super premium brands in India, the sales are picking up steadily.

“We used to sell 25 to 30 pairs per week in the initial phase of the launch. However, we are selling the same number of pairs daily now,” he said. Clarks’ signature footwear line comprises dress formals, everyday casuals, sports casuals and sandals priced from Rs 2,500 onwards to Rs 8,000.

The Leading Hotels of the World Ltd (LHW), towards October end, brought in a host of international luxury hotels for a showcase in India – most of them first timers except a few like Silverseas Cruises.

Maarten Tromp, director of sales and marketing – emerging markets, Silversea Cruises, said, “Our first visit to explore the Indian market was in early 2005 and we did a stop-over in Mumbai later in the month of April. Having analysed the business potential here we recently appointed a New Delhi-based company Tirun International to market our cruise liner. The response has been encouraging and we already have 75 packs coming from India.”

The UK-based cruise liner is optimistic of attracting a good chunk of business from the Indian affluent class. “Around 1,000 packs annually is what we are targeting from the Indian market,” said Sergio Dell’Acqua of Silversea.

On an average, patronising any of the four Silversea cruise liners would cost anywhere between $ 500 to $ 1,000 per person per day and the package varies from seven nights to 16 nights.

The above-mentioned examples are a clear indication of the kind of potential global majors in the luxury and lifestyle segment see coming from the Indian middle-class, higher middle-class and the affluent class segment.

While players in the apparels, accessories, footwear, hospitality and alcoholic segments have a ready-made market to encash, players in the high-end automobile segment will have to wait for some more time for not only the market to evolve but most significantly the infrastructure to support such fuel guzzling machines.

(The writer is a co-promoter of a start-up music production company – Dhwani Creations. He would be happy to receive any comments on the aforesaid subject at journash@gmail.com)

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