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President’s group scouts for partner to expand retailing biz

Vijaya K - Bangalore

President’s group, the first retail company to offer imported designer fabrics from Italy, Germany and Japan in the domestic market plans to expand its Super Store concept to various parts of Bangalore catering to the middle class and upmarket and is scouting for partner with good and infrastructure and experience.

The Bangalore based President’s group began its foray into retail operations in 1982 with one small retail outlet and today the group has a chain of retail stores spread across the city. The group has its own in-house brand of menswear called ‘Sartorial’. Super Store is a unit of Sartorial Fashion Empire. "During the year 1978-79 lot of vacuum was found in the fabrics market. Realising the potential we forayed into retailing. We were the first one to bring fabrics like linen, tencel and we have been importing fabrics from very high fashioned markets like Japan, Italy and Germany" says Mr Jaychand Bafna, managing director.

President’s group is focussed on wedding collections because that is where Mr Bafna finds the growth opportunities. "Indians do not think twice to spend on wedding clothes" this is what he feels. "But it is very capital intensive because making an outfit like shervani incurs an expense of at least Rs 15,000 to 20,000." The unique selling point of the retail outlets is that they offer specialised fabrics, wedding suits, Italian fabrics, men trousseaus both casuals and ethnic etc at competitive prices. "Every President store has a specific target customer and the merchandise offered in the store is in a sense "tailor-made" for that customer. Customer tailoring is another key strength of the President chain with suits being delivered in 24 hours" says Mr Bafna. President’s group has been sourcing fabrics from India and abroad and is the first one to bring fabrics like linen and tencel to India. "Imported fabrics are much better in quality and cheaper in cost as compared to those available in India. But India does not have the infrastructure for such fine quality fabrics. We lack specialisation" Mr Bafna opines. The group expects to post a revenue of Rs 2 crore from Chennai alone which according to Mr Bafna has lot of scope.