Who said men don’t love shopping? They shop when it counts, at Future Group’s Brand Factory outlets in Calcutta and across India! t2 caught up with Mumbai-based Calcutta boy Suresh Sadhwani, business head, Brand Factory, at their Chinar Park store to find out what makes Brand Factory such a hit...

What is the Brand Factory vision?

At inception, it had a different view of being a ‘season minus one’ merchandise store, typically a factory outlet in a bigger way. When we realised that there was a greater demand, we started tying up with brands for exclusive merchandise for Brand Factory. Because of the production capacity, we have been able to handle the price points and pass on discounts to the consumer.

How is the Brand Factory concept different from, say, FBB?

FBB is not a discount store but a full-priced one. Big Bazaar used to have apparel sold at a discount initially, around four to five years back, but now it’s a first price point connect store. Effectively, there isn’t a format like Brand Factory across the country. Nowhere else, under a single roof, can one get a 40-50 per cent discount on brands like Levi’s, Pepe and Lee Cooper.

With such discounts, how does Brand Factory make profits?

Our running costs are pretty low because all our stores are stand-alones. If you go to a mall, the rental one would pay for a 500-600sq ft store, I’d pay the same for a stand-alone 20,000sq ft store. That makes a difference, the saving is huge.

What makes the discount model click for shoppers?

Discounts create a demand. If there is a demand from the customer, all the brands have to offer discounts. Eight to 10 years back, a brand going on a discount was a bad thing, but that is no more the case today. Today a customer jumps when they see things on sale. Which is what’s happening online... people are reacting to the discount model. Promos (off-season discounts) are also a norm. It’s sort of an expectation from the customers, especially men.

But we were under the impression that it’s women who shop more...

That’s because women are shopping all the time. Men will go only twice a year but that will coincide with either the sale or with an on-going promo.

Are you able to provide fresh fashion?

Our specially manufactured clothes for Brand Factory have the latest trends. But even the season-minus-one concept effectively doesn’t make much of a difference to the shopper today... even if a skirt is one-season-old, one would still wear it because skirts are never really out of fashion, unlike a high-fashion product like coloured denim. Trends here are almost 50-60 per cent current. We try to keep styles that are always a continuing trend.

What is your typical shopper profile?

We encompass almost everybody, right from an Uber driver who is aspiring to wear a brand like Levi’s to a smart customer who knows that there is no point spending Rs 2,000 on a white Van Heusen shirt and would rather come here and buy it on a discount. We have seen that customers who come to us stick around. Maybe they see the value of bigger brands, and whatever you say, people have a thing for brands.

Is fashion becoming faster now in comparison to when you started out?

Faster is not the correct word. I would say that we don’t have any specific trend in the market. A little bit of everything is selling. Ten years ago, style used to change one at a time. Today everything is there —
V-necks, deep necks.... Today people are also ready to experiment with their style. That is a big change we are seeing in the market. Like Kareena Kapoor Khan wears something which is not in the market and I manufacture it and put it up on the mannequin, customers pick it up. They don’t wait for others to wear it anymore.

So, is there a challenge that retail is facing today?

There are obviously a lot of retailers who have come in. Still, everybody is doing well because the economy has improved and the consumption has increased. So as of now, there is no challenge, there’s still enough time before the market gets saturated. If Tier A is growing, people are also slowly reaching out to Tier B, which includes smaller metropolises like Bhubaneswar.

Online shopping is a big trend today. Who is winning in the online shop-versus-offline shop face-off?

E-tail has just come in. Retailers were there much before. It will take time and both will set their own course, which is what has happened abroad. I don’t see any clash happening. There’s enough market available for both right now.

What is the expansion model that Brand Factory follows?

We saw a lot of traction and first captured our existing markets like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Calcutta. We have 10 stores now in Hyderabad, which is a big deal. Currently, we have five in Calcutta and two are coming up. Nobody else can boast such numbers in any city. We’re now looking at newer cities. Three stores are opening at a go in both Delhi and Chennai. The growth is phenomenal. In 2014, we had 38 stores pan-India. By March 2017, we’ll have 65 stores pan-India.

Suresh’s Calcutta connect

♦ He’s a New Alipore boy who can “speak, read and write Bengali”
♦ He studied at St. Joseph & Mary’s School in Alipore and went to Heramba Chandra College. “After finishing Class X, I started working. In the morning I’d work, take a break in the afternoon to attend college and then go back to work. That’s how I completed my studies.”
♦ Growing up, Suresh shopped at New Market. “There was no retail then, apart from New Market and other local shops.”
♦ He’s the first in a family of businessmen to enter retail. “I had no interest in fashion. It was all about working and earning money.”
♦ When in Calcutta, Suresh makes it a point to have phuchkas first. “Everybody who comes to Mumbai from Calcutta has to get me a bottle of phuchka water. There’s a phuchka guy in Pune and I drive down to him with my wife!” He also orders in momos from Lee Road’s Hamro Momo.

Riddhima Khanna