Alcis Sports, a performance wear brand, was launched to tap the potential of emerging athleisure segment in the country as more and more Indians are getting health and fitness conscious.
Talking about the USP of the brand, Roshan Baid, Managing Director, Alcis Sports says, “Alcis Sports, a home-grown, premium cutting-edge performance and athleisure sports-wear brand, was incepted about two years ago to hit that sweet spot between quality and affordability which was missing from the market. The brand offers technologically advanced products backed by innovation, style and comfort at affordable price points.”
“Alcis prides itself for being the first Indian brand to have the capability and production ability to manufacture technologically advanced sports’ wear at affordable price-points to enhance the performance of consumer,” he adds.
The company leverages on manufacturing prowess and experience of running India’s largest integrated sports-wear manufacturing company, Paragon Apparels, which works for world’s best sportswear brands.
“I realise that brand building is a time-consuming process and we have taken our initial steps by signing up cricketer Shikhar Dhawan as the brand ambassador for Alcis Sports. We are also being aggressive on social media platforms and trying to be relevant in our communication while interacting with our audience,” Baid asserts.
Product Categories
The brand which is available pan India offers products starting from Rs 399 onwards.
The product range of Alcis spans across specific apparels for running, training, yoga, football, racquet sports and other athletic and leisure activities.
“We use latest technologies such as Dry-Tech (moisture management), Anti-Odour, Anti-Static, Anti-UV and Light X in our products, which are specifically designed keeping Indian lifestyles and weather conditions in mind,” states Baid.
Autumn-Winter Collection of the brand comprises of 149 men styles and 135 women styles, across categories like running, training, racquet sports and yoga. The complete collection offers around 695 options.
Decoding the Store
The Alcis Sports stores offer tech innovations wherein customers can customize their outfits their way.
Explaining it further, Baid says, “Customers can have any name and number of their choice printed at the back of singlet, t-shirt, sweatshirt or tracksuit, that too on the spot.”
The visual merchandising of the stores reflect the brand’s philosophy – that it wants to be seen as a challenger brand, one that questions conventions and is bold and sporty.
“This is consistent across all our marketing collaterals, including visual merchandising and in-store branding,” he adds.
Omnichannel Strategy
Alcis products are available in over 700 outlets across the country including all leading large format stores such as Lifestyle, Shopper Stop, Central, Globus, Sports Station. At present, the brand has 9 exclusive stores in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Jaipur, Guwahati, Bengaluru and Goa.
Apart from offline stores, the brand is also available on all online retail websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra along with their own website Alcissports.com
“Both the channels have their own strengthsand cater to different people. At Alcis, we want to touch as many customers as possible across offline and online channels and see both of them as very important in our scheme of things,” he asserts.
Future Plans
The brand has pinned high hopes on the future. Explaining it further, Baid says, “The future looks really bright for the athleisure industry in India. As more and more people choose to indulge in sports-related activities, they are also realizing that regular garments are not really a fit for such activities and are instead opting for clothes that are tailor-made especially for the athleisure segment.”
“Secondly, sports as an industry is growing which is very visible via the surfeit of new leagues, teams and tournaments across all sports in India. This augurs extremely well for the sportswear industry as well, as the growth will mean more youngsters taking up sports,” he adds.
To tap the potential of the market, the brand is aggressively getting into other allied product articles like backpack, socks, caps and even shoes.
According to Baid, “Our distribution network is also growing, and we plan to reach 1,200 touch points from 700 by the end of this financial year. We are also looking at aggressively expanding our exclusive outlets.”
The brand, which had a turnover of Rs. 25 crore in FY 17-18, is targeting Rs. 60 crore by this fiscal year end.
