The best export markets for ethnicwear are the Arab countries
Ariya Fashions, a Mumbai-based ethnicwear manufacturer, trader and exporter, is a fast emerging company. As the company scales new heights, Gopal Krishanan, owner of Ariya Fashions details out the company’s current working and future plans with Fibre2Fashion.com. He weaves his way through the common challenges that this industry faces and his solutions to deal with such problems.
Please give us a brief about Ariya Fashions as a company.
Our company, Ariya Fashions has a good number of trained and skilled workers – of about 40 to 50 workers – divided into various departments like purchasing, designing, cutting and distributing, sewing, overlock sewing, ironing and folding, packing, marketing and selling.
Till date, we concentrated on manufacturing as per the orders of other exporters. This is our newly-launched trading company. It aims at developing products and services all over the world. We handle small as well as bulk quantity orders.
We can export our production according to the customers’ needs as we are focused on customer satisfaction.
What are the challenges facing your company? What are your solutions to overcome them?
As we all know, customers complain about fabric colours fading away while washing and stitches getting removed many times. This mostly happens in retailing. All such problems used to crop up when our company was new.
To overcome such problems, we took certain decisions explaining matters to our customers. We explained to them that it is not our mistake. They mostly use chemicals mixed in detergent powders for washing. I wish to tell them to please wash clothes according to instructions. Many fabrics need different types of washing.
We have a policy that each and every product which comes out of the production unit is checked three times before it goes for packaging. If there is any damage or any quality defect in the material, it is replaced immediately with quality products.
How do you perceive competition from Western brands?
Actually, I don’t mind Western brands. To know our company status or level in the market, we need competitors to compete with us because to survive in the market, there must be continuous advertising (SEO, SMO). There must be a variety of samples and creative designs according to future trends.
Ethnicwear or industvas always has a special place than the rest as it is unique, cultured and attractive. In a country like India, which places a lot of importance on culture, ethnicwear definitely plays a major role in every season.
But in indutvas, just the embroidery work on dresses with creative designs, quality of the product and pricing matters a lot in attracting customers.
Who are the big players in this industry? Where do you stand?
This industry was started by Ariya Perumal, my father. He manages the whole manufacturing or production department while I have been managing the export department (post-production work), which makes it easy to have clear-cut quality materials and satisfaction for customers.
Which are the best export markets for indutvas? Which markets have turned out to be specifically better for you?
The best export markets for indutvas are the Arab countries as they are more sensitive towards their culture. Major markets, which are observers of ethnicwear, specifically play a good role for our industry such as the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, etc, though we can sell our products all over the world.
What are your pricing and retailing strategies?
As we deal with bulk orders, our pricing and retailing is very reasonable with respect to the price customers usually bargain for. Pricing is dependent upon the amount of work it calls for and material and resources used to develop the product.
What expansion plans lie ahead for Ariya Fashions?
As my firm grows with a positive reputation, I will include some additional products like westernwear and leather products. In the future, after 5-10 years, we will think of franchises as a simultaneous plan for company development.
Published on: 25/03/2016
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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