Ever since the nationwide lockdowns began, it has made a huge impact on many businesses and bought the county at a standstill. The fashion industry had been shut for more than 3 months, in order to come out of this slump- the industry came up with an innovative idea. the ideas were to basically get fashion on wheels. Even though many states have reopened their malls and retail fashion stores have been opened for the public, people are worried about going out for shopping.
The fashion trucks have begun delivering clothes by going to residential colonies. This practice has as on now started in Mumbai and New Delhi only. The fashion brands include- Levi’s Strauss, Pepe jeans, Max fashion, Forever New and Bata. This practice has a motive of boosting the company’s sales by sending pop-up stores and retail trucks in residential colonies.
Manish Kapoor, CEO of Pepe jeans, London said that, “After practically no sales for about three months, we recovered around 30 per cent of our last year’s sales numbers in June. It went up 50 per cent in July. But people are hesitant to go out and shop.” He also added, that even though the online business was on-going, yet the people could not really get the brand experience.
Kapoor also said, “It’s not only about doing sales, it’s also getting that connection back with the consumer and telling them that we are there with you even when you cannot reach us. Rather than seeing individual garments on a click, a person will be able to see them in terms of the stories that they tell, different colours and various trends.” He gave a hint about expanding this service to Thane and Pune also.
The footwear brand “Bata” has set up mobile stores in more than 40 cities and has reported that they are witnessing a steady rise in sales. “For our digital novices, like the elderly, children and homemakers, who have not been stepping out of the house as much, we have launched Bata Store on Wheels, as we wanted to enable them to make hyperlocal purchases from the safety of their condominiums and apartments,” said Sandeep Kataria, CEO, Bata India Limited.
The apparels and jeans brand Levi’s are to send their retail trucks to Delhi and Gurgaon. A statement was made by Sanjeev Mohanty, managing director of the South Asia, Middle East and North Africa’s Levi Strauss & Co. in which he said, ““Our main motive is to ensure that our consumers feel safe and comfortable while shopping. We have tops, shorts, and lightweight comfortable denim led ‘work from home’ collection for this store concept. Our consumers can try out the garments at their homes and for alterations, the team on the ground takes measurements and the final product, after being modified at the nearest store, it is delivered to the customer.”
At the end, Manish Kapoor added, “We’ve got phenomenal response in terms of sales. And in fact, numbers have been much higher than what we had expected… We had a lot of youngsters, who could otherwise buy online, come to the stores.”
NEWS REPORTED BY:
VRIDHI BHAGNARI.
