Rajan Raheja Group-promoted Globus Fashion has pinned high hopes on the accessory segment as it has been constantly growing.
In an exclusive interview with Indiaretailing, Amit Kumar, COO, Globus said, “We have actually been doubling the business in accessory segment season after season. Initially, we started accessory segment with just imitation jewellery but with the passage of time, we have added nail paints, sunglasses, watches, bags, footwear and hair accessories to the portfolio. So, this is one category which is really growing for us. It has given a lot of confidence to us.”
Out of total stores 40 stores covering almost 20 cities, Globus has one dedicated store just for accessories.
“The exclusive accessory store was opened in Bengaluru’s Mantri Mall has just few months back. At present, we are concentrating on getting the model right. Once the model is right, I guess that this is one big opportunity for us,” he further added.
Fast Fashion Private Label Brands
Almost 20 years back, Globus started its journey as one of the first fashion retailers in the country. When Globus was laucnhed in the country, it created kind of a revolution in terms of selling private label brands in India. The brand’s retail store was focussed only on selling private brands and it used to give the real fast-fashion or fresh fashion at that time and from there to now, the brand has learnt a lot and grown a lot.
According to Kumar, “Around 60-65 percent of our business actually comes from private brands. We are really not looking at premiumising our products, we are a fast fashion brand at a mid-price point and that is what we would like to continue with. We are adding new categories rather new price points but that is not taking the prices up too much, so we will like to focus on what we are best at.”
He further added, “I think the beauty of Globus is that consumer who walks in gets all the categories for them and the common link between every category is the latest fashion and that is what we are trying to focus on.”
Being An Omnichannel Retailer
Omnichannel is still at the nascent stage for the brand Globus. Despite having its own website, it is still in the process of integrating it with the front-end.
“The next step for us will be to really integrate front-end with the back-end, so that the consumer get the seamless experience while they are coming to the store, they should be able to shop online to offline and offline to online,” asserted Kumar.
He further added, “We are selling curently on Myntra and doing a good business there. Apart from this we are also selling on Amazon, Jabong, TataCliq. So we are almost there on all the e-commerce websites. But the revenue from online is still quite small. It is less then 5 percent as of now.”
As per the strategy, the brand has been selling old-season merchandise on discount at all the e-commerce platforms. However, this is the first season when it is focussing on selling the new season merchandise and the initial response and success has been quite good.
Revamping Store Size
Despite being an early entrant, Globus has failed to match up to Shoppers Stop, Pantaloons and Lifestyle International among others that had entered the fashion segment around the same time, or later.
Elaborating on the same, Kumar revealed, “We actually wanted to correct our model and that is why it has taken a lot of time for us to reach this level. As of now, we think, close to 7,000-10,000 sq.ft store is something which with which we will get now into many more malls now.”
He further added, “Like earlier, we cannot have 20,000 sq.ft store anymore as there are very less retail spaces are available with that kind of a size and to fill a 20,000 sq.ft store you require a lot of other national brands as well. Because our focus has always been on private brands, we just want to get a model right.”
However, the big Globus stores will continue to function the way they are. There are no plans of really shutting them down.
“We have 6 stores which are only women focussed. As of now, we do not have plans to open only men’s store. We have found that the best model for us is a multi-category store which spans across 7,000-10,000 sq.ft and that is where the focus will be,” revealed Kumar.
He further added, “We are not actively looking for new properties or to expand. As and when we are getting the right property at the right location, we will open the store. We are not really putting the target for us, but you can expect atleast 4-5 company-owned stores to come up by the end of the year.”
