Pankaj Saxena, Business Head, Raymond Home shares key insights into the home textile business and how Raymond Home is looking for robust growth in this category.
Raymond Limited – India’s leading Textile and Apparel Company forayed into the organized Indian home textile market, with the launch of their distinctive range of bed sheet sets, towels, blankets and comforters for its customers.
Tell us about Raymond Home and its new launch?
It’s just a start-up and we have crossed 75 crores of business today. The group has an ambition to build a larger business out of home textiles. We were already a leading player in blankets and now we have rebranded this offering under Raymond Home. We have a large product portfolio with distinctive range of bedsheet collection, towel range, bath collection, quilts, comforters, top of the bed products branded as Raymond Home. We are aspiring to capture a larger market share in the home category.
What will be your positioning of the products in the market?
Raymond is a premium product. Our price brackets also operate between mid-price and higher price segments. Our starting price points are from `1300-1400 for the mid segment consumers. For bed sheets we start with `1200 and go upto `30,000. For blankets also we start anywhere between `1000 and go upto `70,000 which are high premium products like cashmere and blends, tencel, modal etc.
Tell us about your product expansion plans?
There is continuous innovation to upgrade from where we are today. We will be adding new fibrers in our product portfolio. We will also look at expanding in exclusive design collection as India is a very vibrant market. We are currently look at giving new elements with our present portfolio and as a when the market moves we will add 1-2 more products.
What’s your retail mapping currently? What are your expansion plans?
The product is currently available in The Raymond Shops in around 800 stores across India. Then we are spread across around 2000 Multi Brand Outlets (MBOs). Popular large format stores like HomeStop, Pantaloons, HyperCity, Evok, and Big Bazaar already houses the collection.With Exclusive Brand Outlets (EBOs) we have a plan of opening some 27-28 stores this year. Out of this number, 5 are already rolled out. These operational EBOs are in Kolkatta where we have 2 stores, and in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kuttack where we have 1 store each. These stores will be targeted in all major metros and B class cities across India. The EBOs will work on the franchisee model. We have a plan to open some 5 company owned stores also and for this we are identifying the location. We are strong in East and we are building North, South. West will our main focus.
Raymond Home is also available with prominent e-commerce channels like PAYTM, Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Jabong amongst others.What about exports?
We are going to retail these products in our neighboring countries where we have our own Raymond Shops. Around 50-60 shops are there mostly in Gulf, then in Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, where we will be placing our products.
Who would be your competitors when you specifically target the organized home section?
If you see the home textile market in India, 90 percent of this market is still unorganized, and only 10 percent of the market contributes to organized share of business. Now in this organized set-up there are 4-5 brands which are operating. Raymond has a clear vision to give quality product in that organized market segment and we want to catch that major portion of this market. We are going to focus more on the bed and bath categories. Raymond Home wants to capitalize the No. 1 or 2 position in the coming years.
Tell us about you manufacturing capabilities and expansion plans?
We already have other facilities where we are doing our production. These unit works with complete Raymond quality parameters. Nevertheless we have specified factories across India which can produce Raymond Home products. For blankets we have our facilities in Jalgaon, Maharashtra. Currently our aim is on brand building.
Tell us about you turnover and future estimations?
Raymond Home is presently at Rs 75 Crores and we are trying to scale up this turnover to Rs.150 Crore this year itself.
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