Brand chiefs mark 10 obstacles in women and kids wear business

 

Over 30 decision-makers in or related to the women and children wear business, marked and discussed 10 issues that must be addressed for betterment of the industry.
The decision-makers got together at the Nokia Images CEOs Meet at the Pure and Play conference in Delhi. The participants included Tarun Puri, MD, Nike India; Marcelo Villagran, MD, Bata India; Thorsten Allenstein, country head, Triumph; Subhash Chhabra, president, Globus; Samir Sahni, director, Ritu Wears; Anchal Jain, founder, Nun; and Aloke Banerjee, CEO, Rosebys.
Anchored by Anuj Puri, chairman and country head, Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, and Jayant Kochar, MD, GoFish Solutions, the participants agreed that creating an ethnic brand for women is not an easy task as the category is dominated by the unorganised sector. They opined that dedicated and trained workforces in the manufacturing sector is one of the critical needs of the hour.
The chiefs also agreed that the industry needs well-researched information on various business aspects, right from studying fits and sizes to creating better shopping destinations and retail environments, to pricing and branding strategies in sync with the Indian consumers’ mindset.
Following are the issues that were marked out and discussed at the meet:

– Not enough kids and womenwear brands are present in the organised retail market in the country
– Complexities of creating ethnic womenswear brands
– Lack of adequate information on fits and sizes
– Lack of suitable retail environment for women and kids
– Lack of initiative from the retailers to understand and cater to the niche category
– There is neglect on the part of retailers towards the kidswear market
– Inadequate support from mall developers for womenswear and kidswear brands in terms of differential pricing and focus on retail space
– Not enough brand-building initiatives from the retailers
– The niche category needs to be widened to include accessories, and health and beauty products
– Lack of vision to do something ‘big’ in this niche category

Second MINC in Bengaluru

 

MINC, an eco-friendly apparel brand for women, has opened its second outlet in Bengaluru.
MINC is an upcoming brand that is backed by a unique concept of promoting eco-friendly fashion and support the use of organic cotton. The brand retails apparel made of hand-woven/spun, organic cotton and vegetable-dyed fabrics. It also focuses on traditional craft like embroidery, kalamkari and use of sequins to develop popular ethnic clothing, viz. kurtas and kimono throws.
The brand is the brainchild of Mishan Design Point’s owners – Mini Shibu and Kochery C Shibu.
According to Mini Shibu, the brand owner, MINC’s aim is to revive the beauty of the hand-spun/woven garments and infuse skills of the traditional weavers and dyers with latest trends, colours and styles to promote a ‘green’ lifestyle.
"The vision of the company is to bring eco-friendly apparel to mainstream fashion,” said Kochery C Shibu.
MINC collections are competitively priced in the range of Rs 630-Rs 1,800.
The company plans to expand through South India until 2010, and open outlets in metros by 2013.

Gap investing big on its CSR in India

 

Gap has joined hands with the ministry of women and child development, government of India, and various state governments for the welfare of children and women in the country. The company, in association NGOs, has also taken various initiatives to solve the water crisis caused due to manufacturing of denims in India.
Speaking to Indiaretailing, Lakshmi Menon Bhatia, director, global partnerships, social responsibility, Gap Inc., said, "We will form alliances with the central and some state governments including Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, for prevention, rehabilitation and eradication of child labour and exploitation of women labour at various outsourcing factories of the company."
The company has also initiated a special rehabilitation centre for women and children in association with Delhi-based NGO Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in the national capital. "We have planned to invest around $200,000 (over Rs 85 lakh) to build destitute homes in and around Delhi," informed Bhatia.
Besides, the company, with assistance from various NGOs, has planned to set up water rehabilitation plants at places where its factories are located. “Denim is a thirsty fabric and its manufacturing process consumes a lot of water. Hence, we have planned to set up water rehab plants in and around our manufacturing units,” said Bhatia.

India's online population up by 27% in 1 yr

The Financial Express

New Delhi: More number of people in India are online now than earlier with the size of cyber audiences rising to over 28 million users in 2008, a growth of 27 per cent over the previous year.

Not just India, internet audiences in Asia-Pacific at home and at work, among users of 15 years and above, grew by 14 per cent to 319 million visitors in April 2008, outpacing growth of all other worldwide regions, comScore, Inc, an internet marketing research firm said in a report.

"The strongest growth occurred in India which surged by 27 per cent to more than 28 million internet users. This was followed by China with a 14 per cent growth to more than 102 million," the report titled 'The State of Global Internet with a Focus on Asia' said.

Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand registered a growth of 12 per cent each. Meanwhile developed nations such as Japan and Singapore showed modest gains of 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively, it said.

Other findings stated that although Google and Yahoo! combined to capture majority of the search share in the Asia-Pacific region, five of the top 10 search properties are regional engines, including China's Baidu.com and Korea's Naver.com.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook.com is the leading social networking site in the world, but in the Asia-Pacific region Friendster.com is preferred.

Internet users in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia spent most time online.

Indian basmati set to enter China, Mexico

 

New Delhi: Indian basmati rice will soon be cooked in China and Mexico. Presently, basmati exports reach more than 130 countries, and the government hopes to take advantage of the Chinese and Mexican markets in a couple of years.

"In a couple of years, we hope to carve a niche for basmati rice in China and Mexico as well," A.K. Gupta, advisor, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), India's official agri-product export promotion agency. He added that China held huge prospects for Indian basmati. India had exported 54 tonnes of basmati to China in 2006-07 on a trial basis.

"India's export of basmati is increasing 20 to 30 per cent every year," said Gupta. "In terms of quality, flavour and taste, our product continues to get preference over that of the rival exporting country," he said, referring to neighbouring Pakistan. "Efforts are on to expand the market worldwide," Gupta said in a statement.

India has an approximate share of 53 per cent in the basmati rice international market and promotional events such as buyer-seller meets, sending trade representatives overseas are on, to expand the existing consumer base. Major imports of India's basmati rice are into markets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, the UK, the US, Yemen, Canada, Iran, Germany, Oman, South Africa, France, Syria, Belgium, Australia and Germany.

India's export of basmati rose from 848,919 tonnes to 1.05 million tonnes in 2006-07.

Previously, 597,793 tonnes had been exported in 1998-99. Production of basmati and non-basmati rice is likely to touch 129 million tonnes by 2011-12 on a growth rate basis of 3.7 per cent along with other foodgrains. "Four years down the road, India needs to increase rice productivity by over 40 million tonnes per year, something which is feasible," said an agriculture ministry official.

"In 2006-07, consumption of rice was 88.25 million tonnes. As per the fourth advance estimates on July 19, 2007, the production of rice was over 92 million tonnes. In April 2008, rice production went up to 95.68 million tonnes," the official added.

The Cabinet Committee on Prices (CCP) March 31 increased maximum export price (MEP) for basmati rice to US$ 1200 per tonne though is less likely to impact the export of basmati rice. Basmati and non-basmati rice are staple sources of foreign currency revenue for India. The government had earlier exported basmati worth about US$ 4.61 billion and non-basmati rice worth US$ 6.79 billion during April-December 2006.

APEDA data shows basmati rice exports to Saudi Arabia were 499,584 tonnes, 104,998 tonnes to the UAE and 109,067 tonnes to Kuwait in 2006-07. Indian basmati rice lovers include Uganda, Angola, Congo, Botswana, Fiji, Ghana, Cameroon, Chile, Romania, Zambia and Surinam.