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How do you select your manufacturing partner( s); are they open to giving small quantities?
Suditi Industries is our only manufacturing partner, so quantity is never a question. We selected them as they are a reputed company with over 20 years of experience in garment manufacturing.
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What can you say about the journey so far? What is your growth strategy? Any plans to go international?
It has been a gruelling and challenging journey. Today, we have the best retail partners, a great stream of online sales and a growing brand, all of which makes me very proud to be an integral part of the YWC growth story. We are rapidly expanding our presence further.
Since we want to become a complete fashion retail brand across all key categories to give a holistic shopping experience both online and offline, we intend to have more self-owned stores across key high street and mall locations pan-India in the near future as well as want to consolidate our strategic partnerships already in place with Jabong, Myntra and Central before we move international.
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IKEA which is all set to open doors of its first physical store in India on July 19 in Hyderabad is now seeing e-commerce operation as a viable option in the country. The furniture retailer is optimistic that online sales in India may surpass global average of 8-10 per cent.
“ Mumbai will be the first location in India where IKEA may kick off its e-commerce operations from next year,” Chief Executive Peter Betzel told media. The furniture brand is considering this option in view of rapid growth in digitisation and e-commerce in India. In addition to online sales, the furniture retail brand is also planning to go for small format stores of 1,000- 5,000 square metres to penetrate more in cities like Mumbai.“ The e-commerce operation will be expanded in other cities as well where it can offer fulfilment, delivery and assembling services,” added Betzel.
Overall, IKEA is planning to increase its physical presence by opening large or small format stores in at least 49 Indian cities where more than a million people reside.
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“ To cater to the nation’ s service expectations, home delivery is going to be an important element of our offer. As a company, we have determined plans to adopt electric vehicles among our operations and in our initial year in India.”
– Patrik Antoni, Deputy Country Manager, IKEA India
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After Hyderabad and Mumbai, the brand will come up with stores in Bangalore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Chennai.
The Hyderabad store is set up at a cost of Rs. 800 crore including land, construction and capital goods. The outlet also boasts of a restaurant with a seating capacity of 1,000, largest among all operated by the furniture giant. Both Indian and Swedish dishes would be served here.
Before finalising 7,500 varieties of home furnishing items to be made available at its stores in India, a team of IKEA met more than 1,000 homes in India with varied income levels and lifestyles to understand their needs and dreams.
IKEA has also announced a partnership with Gati-KWE, a distribution services company, as its supply partner. The Swedenbased home furnishing retailer is looking to use vehicles which run on electricity for the delivery process across the nation. The company will initially use electric vehicles as up to 20 per cent of the total deliveries fleet and will later increase the number to 60 per cent.
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