Apparel Online India Issue 1-15 March '18 | Page 29

H2F
As product development is the key, many exporters have increased their thrust on the
same, but they are moving ahead with balanced approach. Vijay Thukral, Director, (third
generation of family business), Ramesh Impex, Ghaziabad shared: “In last three years,
Europe has been consistent. To cope up with this condition, we are focusing more on
design development. But the idea is to keep balance and not to try too much, as we
should have enough time to concentrate on the business which we are doing right
now. No matter how creative and advanced one is, China is very good at copying.”
The company, working mainly with European market and offering good range of home
furnishing products, has hired designers, is involved more in research and is applying
more and more value addition techniques as a growth strategy.
Senior official of India’s Heritage
of mid-century… For that we
source from Jaipur, Delhi, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Kolkata and Kashmir,”
shared a senior-most official of
the company. India’s Heritage will
continue to grow sourcing from India
as it consistently works to add new
categories to expand its product lines
and is also witnessing an increase
in demand for the existing product
categories. “We focus a lot on how
we can offer different kinds of looks
in our product lines. A year ago, we
started sourcing throws from India,
which proved a good business for the
company,” says the official. To serve
its client better, he offered a package
(box of products) to the retailers
which are difficult for them to source
individually. This strategy has been
very successful for the company.
Two years ago, India’s Heritage
started sourcing bedding from
Europe as it had too much mix
of India and wanted to break the
monotony. “Sourcing from Europe
helped us to be trendier rather than
being very traditional. We got a
good mix of fabric from there,” he
added. Dedicated purely to home
furnishing products, the company
is having warehouse at New Jersey
from where it caters to various
chain stores, furniture stores of
North America and South America.
As far as overall working of Indian
exporters is concerned, these buyers
are relatively happy as he feels that
there has been a lot of improvement
over the years as exporters are now
more professional and are travelling
more which is helping them to
understand international markets,
trends etc. With regard to further
areas of improvement, he feels that
communication and shade difference
are the issues where Indian
companies can improve further.
On similar lines, international
experts also insist that Indian
exporters need to study their
perspective clients or customers
more deeply. Working with India
from last 25 years, Head of Retail
Strategy, Israel, says, “It is
very important for the supplier
to minutely understand culture,
lifestyle and overall study of the
customers. And I am helping them
in the same.” she is supporting
the industry by her expert
consultancy service on product
development and sourcing, to the
Indian companies. “Not everyone
is open to new ideas, and more
research is a problem with many
Indian exporters, but sooner or later
they have to change this mindset
as even within a city, buyers of
similar products are quite different,”
she reasoned.
There are some
other buyers still
banking on India’s
differential strength
yet spreading their
sourcing into other
countries to add more
value in their offering.
However, their first
priority is still India
and they too are
looking at increasing
their sourcing from
India.
It has been widely
reported in recent
times that Chinese
companies have
increased their
focus on product
development, designs
which is another issue
for Indians. However,
many buyers do not
agree to the same,
though experts feel
that in some product
categories like table
tops, China has
grabbed a big share of
India.
Regarding market opportunities, she
is of the opinion that apart from US,
there is ample opportunity for Indian
companies in Israel, especially in
product categories like bedding
and towels. It is a good market
as people frequently change their
home décor and per capita income
is also high compared to many other
countries. But being a small market,
competition is very high, so one has
to be very careful about pricing.
With positivity in the US, some
Indian buying agencies are also
gearing up to get more orders of
home furnishing products, especial ly
as in recent years they missed this
segment. They are even adding
new strategies to achieve this goal.
For example, Delhi-based Charu
Merchandising is now expecting that
home furnishing business should
come back as focus is more in that
direction, currently. The company
is trying to push regular items like
bath towels, bath mates, sheeting,
pillow covers in textile business as
these are big volume business.
“China is 'killing' us, as people are
going for cheaper kinds of stuff like
micro fibres; so we are trying to
work more on our product line. Our
major market is the US and we are
exploring new clients in the market.
We are trying to add more accounts
as it is time to work with more
importers as importer's business
gives bigger horizon of getting into
stores. We are still working with
one to one stores like Dollar Tree,
Family Dollar, but through importers
we get access to lot of other stores,”
says Deven Saxena, MD, Charu
Merchandising, who is working with
lot of discounters in US.
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