NEW DELHI : With an eye fixed on a buoyant pageant season, Puma is anticipated to far exceed its 2021 income of ₹2,000 crore this yr. In an interview, Abhishek Ganguly, managing director, Puma India and Southeast Asia, mentioned the sportswear model is focussing on the omnichannel shopper and is reaching out to its buyer by well-liked icons from the sporting, music and movies fraternities. Edited excerpts:
How necessary are the festive season gross sales, contemplating that Puma is a sportswear model?
The very fact is that in India customers spend some huge cash throughout this time. There’s festive atmosphere and a aim of spending more cash. It’s a crucial season for us, and traditionally so. Simply to place it in context, the second half of the yr is 60-62% of our enterprise throughout channels and classes, in comparison with the primary half at 40-48%. Plenty of it’s festive season gross sales, whereas a few of additionally it is as a result of northern and japanese India has winters and the typical promoting value of attire goes up. However a majority of the spike in gross sales within the second half of the yr is due to the festive season as folks find yourself spending more cash.
So do you count on to surpass pre-covid gross sales?
For certain. Final yr was greater than 2019. And final yr, we have been nonetheless having the impact of the second wave of covid and there was an enormous drag within the enterprise. Within the shopper’s thoughts what had occurred was nonetheless very recent. The injuries had positively not healed. This yr, shopper sentiment and the temper of commerce, actual property, malls, e-commerce platforms is super-positive, and expectation is super-high. The preliminary developments I see on the weekends from all channels, we’re most likely taking a look at phenomenal development within the subsequent three months.
The corporate did over ₹2,000 crore in income in 2021. What sort of soar are you anticipating?
I won’t be able to share the precise quantity; I can solely inform you that we’re rising phenomenally over final yr’s quantity. I’m anticipating unprecedented demand in our class and in our model.
On-line enterprise contributes 43% of Puma’s general gross sales. Do you see it truly fizzling out contemplating that individuals are out-and-about?
Proportion-wise I’ll solely know that on the finish of the yr as this season will decide that. However I can inform you this time the buoyancy could be very excessive for offline. Retailers are again. They are saying it’s our yr to get again enterprise and never only for the sportswear class however for the complete vogue business. Manufacturers like us are increasing and opening extra shops. On-line gross sales have nonetheless grown. Sure platforms are rising greater than 50% versus final yr in our class. You’ve got lot of knowledge to work on in on-line and types which work very carefully with these platforms are capable of construct a whole lot of efficiencies when it comes to assortments or pricing which will get natural development. We’re constructing our personal procuring app in India.
Are you over-reliant on e-commerce?
We perceive our enterprise and the place customers are. As we speak we’ve got greater than 410 mono model shops in India. We now have a whole lot of dedication to our multi-brand shops, resembling Shopper Cease and Life-style, and regional retailers like Kapsons. We now have by no means been naysayers of e-commerce, and we began it when e-commerce began in India. It’s not due to covid that we needed to pivot our enterprise. We’d not have turn into market leaders had we most well-liked one channel over one other and that’s going to proceed to be our technique as a result of customers now wish to store omni-channel.
When it comes to merchandise and pricing, is there a battle between on-line and offline channels?
Over a interval, we’ve got found what customers store for and on which channel, at what value level, and what classes. If you happen to simply put every part in all places, then there’s positively a battle. So, we’ve got a product distribution technique which relies on the channel. If you’re in Delhi and, when you go, let’s say, to our Choose Metropolis Stroll retailer and also you decide up a product and also you search on-line, 95-98% of the time you’ll both not discover that product on-line or you will discover it on the identical value as a result of we will likely be itemizing it ourselves as a vendor the place we will management the value.
Your model ambassadors comprise Virat Kohli, Kareena Kapoor and even singer Harrdy Sandhu. Who’s your goal shopper?
Properly, we imagine sportswear transcends the boundaries of the pitch and the court docket. It has a powerful affect on tradition, music, artwork, motion pictures and leisure. If you’re taking a look at people who find themselves dressing up on the airport for an airport look or whether or not they’re going clubbing, you will note they’re carrying sportswear. We name it the gym-to-the-runway (airports) technique. So, between the gymnasium and the runway, the strains are blurring. Whether or not it’s Bollywood, OTT platform entertainers, or fashions, they’re sporting athleisure. Therefore, we’ll all the time be rooted in sport and can all the time be related to athletes like Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sunil Chhetri, Mary Kom, and Duti Chand, in addition to Bangalore Soccer Membership and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
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