Page 29 - Images Retail January 2018

EXCLUSIVE

In an interview with manufacturers on time, we smoothly, we hand over the get an opportunity to pick
IMAGES Retail Bureau, get merchandise on time, reins of running a store to a the best from in the country
Manohar Chatlani talks which then reaches the stores franchise partner. If we are – specialised embroidery
about Brand Soch, his on time. Also, since we pay not satisfi ed, we appoint our from Lucknow, prints from
stringent quality control on time and in full, we get own store managers – even Jaipur etc. It also widens the
methods and business the best of merchandise, for franchise stores –to ensure spectrum of goods that we
strategies that have helped one of the main reasons we that service standards are deal in.
the brand grow at a national are patronised by so many maintained.
scale. consumers. Apart from this, we have a Clicks or bricks – what is
regular training team, for all your preferred channel of
Tell us about your brand Are your stores company- employees, including those sale?
Soch. owned or do you run a at franchise stores. We prefer Today, there is no option
Soch is a very young brand. franchise model? to pick partners who are well of clicks over bricks. Every
We opened our fi rst store in In bigger cities, where we versed in the fi eld of retail, retailer must go with both to
2005, second in 2008, and have a warehouse, an area who know the industry well. succeed since competition
the third in 2009. From 2009 manager or strong staff is cutthroat and we have to
to 2017 we have opened 99 presence, we prefer to go in What’s one foremost be on our A-game to stay
stores. We now have 102 for company-owned stores. business strategy that has on top. At the moment 4
stores in total and plan on However, in Tier II & III cities helped you grow? percent of our sale is clicks,
opening another 40 stores by where we have just one or two We manufacture only about and 96 percent is bricks.
the end of 2018. stores and which are diffi cult 3 to 4 percent of our product. From e-commerce, in 2017,
to reach, we prefer to work on We buy the product, and we we have done approximately
What is your brand’s a franchise model. buy in bulk. We buy in bulk `10 crore business and we
USP? How do you woo and pay on time and hence will be actively scaling this up
consumers, especially How do you maintain we are able to get the best of in the coming years. We see
Millennials? quality in the franchise goods. We source goods from our online business growing
Th e USP of my brand is model? the best of manufacturers to between 10-12 percent in
the ‘best merchandise at Since we supply goods, from across the country. One the next couple of years. We
a very fast pace’ . We have quality control is done by us. reason that we don’t get into have our own website, and we
102 stores plus 50 counters In as far as service quality manufacturing is that it limits have marketplaces on Myntra,
in large format stores. is concerned, we have an our taste and variety. If we Amazon, TataCliQ, Flipkart
Th at’s 150 stores along with audit team, outside agencies employ an in-house design and Ajio to name a few.
e-commerce tie ups. Due to who conduct mystery audits. team, our breadth, taste and
these large numbers, we can Only when we are satisfi ed concepts would become Tell us about your
source in bulk. Since we pay that everything is running very limited. In this way we Omnichannel strategy.
We are working towards
building a strong
Omnichannel strategy for the
better part of the last year.
We have implemented the
endless aisle as part of our
Omnichannel strategy in 10-
12 stores on a trial basis. Th is
means if a costumer comes to
any Soch store, he can choose
from 400,000 to 500,000
garments across the eco-
system of Soch – including
from our warehouses –
instead of just the couple of
thousand in one store. Th is
helps in consumer delight
and satisfaction since they
have such a huge variety to
choose from.
In the same stores, we also
give the consumer the option
of ordering online and picking

JANUARY 2018 | IMAGES RETAIL | 29