Giriraj Bagri, CEO, FMCG Business, Raymond Ltd tells us about Raymond’s new customer facing initiative for Park Avenue’s range of men’s grooming products, One Park Avenue. Viney Singh, CEO, Fabindia Overseas Pvt Ltd talks to us about the new experience center that was opened in Mumbai
RAYMOND’S FMCG BUSINESS WILL BEAT INDUSTRY GROWTH RATE IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS: GIRIRAJ BAGRI
Raymond has announced the launch of a new customer-facing initiative for Park Avenue’s range of men’s grooming products called One Park Avenue. Under the One Park Avenue initiative, the brand will have synergies in terms of a Unified Visual Identity, repositioning itself with a wider grooming portfolio, premium international packaging and innovative products. Giriraj Bagri, CEO, FMCG Business, Raymond Ltd tells us more:
ABOUT THE INITIATIVE: The idea of One Park Avenue is built on unique consumer insights backed by strong innovation that will drive consumer acquisition and enhance consumer relevance for our lead brand Park Avenue. We have also launched a new range of premium fragrances and new positioning statement ‘Unleash your X factor’. Going forward, we hope to clock exponential growth and hence a coherent unified premium imagery and identity of Park Avenue has been created for offering the same product experience globally.
GLOBAL EXPANSION: While Park Avenue had a presence in the Middle-East for a while, the business had become dormant. We needed to get our home in order first as the domestic business was also not doing well. Now that our domestic business is in place and we have launched One Park Avenue, we aim to get back to the global markets. Currently, we are planning to enter the Middle-East, Bangladesh and Nepal and in the second phase, we plan to expand to the South Asian markets of Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Myanmar in the next six months.
THE FUTURE OF RAYMOND’S FMCG BUSINESS: In terms of consumer franchise and consumer spend, we are clocking close to Rs 500 crore as far as the FMCG business is concerned. We expect exponential growth in the next few years. Our aim is to significantly beat industry, category and competitor growth rate in the next five years.
MOVE TO EXPERIENTIAL: FABINDIA WILL OPEN 10 EXPERIENCE CENTRES BY END OF 2018, SAYS VINEY SINGH
In an attempt to make a transition from transactional retail to experiential retail, Fabindia has launched a Fabindia Experience Centre in Mumbai. Spread across a 10,000 square feet space near Kemps Corner, this is Fabindia’s second such centre in the country. Viney Singh, CEO, Fabindia Overseas Pvt Ltd tells us more:
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY: The experience centres are meant to be like destination stores for all the Fabindia categories. This is a store where all our categories will be available in full strength, be it garments, home products or personal care products. Through these centres, we are trying to improve our engagement with customers. Through our wide range of products and also a new Fabcafe, we are trying to offer something for every member of the family, and hope the customer experience becomes far more exciting and engaging.
WHAT THE EXPERIENCE CENTRE OFFERS: Each of the experience centres will house the complete Fabindia range. We have also added The Organic India Wellness Center, Fabcafe, Alteration Studio and Interior Design Studio to make it a complete experience in itself. We are looking at opening around 10 experience centres by the end of 2018. We will focus on Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore to set up these stores.
ON GLOBAL EXPANSION: We currently have 10 stores globally, but right now we have put our global expansion on hold. We are trying to redo our model for our international stores. We have learnt from experience that you cannot transport your model exactly the way it is to other countries. There is a lot of adaptation that is required; so we are currently focusing on those adaptation elements.
