Goal

The consumer brand in Linen textile fabrics launched by one of India’s global conglomerates wanted to foray into exclusive brand retail chain. The brand had a great reception in the market through distributors as it was a new category in fabrics at the premium end.
The company had also tested the waters by opening a few franchised stores which showed great promise. Now the company wanted to build an independent retail-focused function that would expand the exclusive retail channel to deliver not only on sales but also on brand experience and consumer insights.

Solution

We first helped the company organize for retail by actively recruiting a complete business team. The functions covered were the head of retail, regional business development personnel, retail operation (stocking and refilling function), visual merchandiser, I.T. support, and projects head. The sales function was left to be handled commonly by the general trade Sales team.

In parallel, we undertook the retail identity design project by evaluating and selecting international and Indian retail identity design agencies of repute. Our role was to act as a bridge between the Company team and the design agency respecting both art and science aspects of retail.

Next, we drew up a 100 stores plan for the new retail team to target opening. We further analyzed the trade channel sales data to strategize geographies to enter through exclusive stores down to the level of cities and towns. We also derived the sales potential per town based on the secondary market potential data and the brand’s general trade sales data. Gaps and opportunities in regions/States were thus found.

In order to formalize the retail front end operations among franchisee run retail stores, we drew up Visual Merchandising Guidelines and Standard Operating Procedure manual to be followed by sales staff at the stores.

Outcome

A retail-dedicated business team was formed to meet the business goals outlined.
A beautiful retail identity was designed that was relevant to the modern consumer who wants to engage with the product by himself.

A plan detailing the next 100 stores across states and towns was drawn up, clearly indicating the areas to focus on for the business development team, to find the franchisees.
Manuals on visual merchandising and SOP was created for store staff.