Vasanth Kumar
Executive Director Max Fashions India
Best performing clusters are where you have young families with IT or service background
Launched in the UAE in May 2004, Max was established in India in 2006, opening its first store in Indore. Now, Max India has a reach that extends to over 60 cities. With a customer base of over 5.5 million, Max is one of the most popular value fashion formats in the region. Vasanth Kumar, executive director of Max Fashions India shares details of the latest campaigns and discusses the expansion model of the company.
Max Fashion soon plans to introduce Wi-Fi in stores. How do you plan to indulge consumers through this? Where do you plan to introduce this?
Our first step is to pilot "endless aisle" in select stores in Bengaluru. We will then start providing Wi-Fi at more stores and engage customers digitally through mobile phones. Rollout of omni-channel will be the third stage.
Where in India are Max Fashions and Easybuy performing better?
Easybuy does well where there are Navbharat customers in towns and cities where there are more bank employees, small and medium business people. They are happy to come to these stores with their family and buy at affordable prices.
Tell us about the concept about Max Emerging Star.
Max Emerging Star (MES) is a property for smart cities which will give 18-24 year olds a chance to move closer to taking the first step to Bollywood. Max Emerging Star's primary focus will be testing contestants based on the complete package including stage presence, confidence, diction, physical attributes, attitude and personality and a desire to succeed. The event will take place in four cities. On the expert jury panel to crown Mr and Miss Max Emerging Star we have acting legend Anupam Kher, India's favourite dance guru Terence Lewis and actor and supermodel Marc Robinsion.
Winners from each city -- to be adjudged by city celebrities and jury -- will move on to compete with other city finalists for the grand finale in Mumbai.
Has the online shopping buzz impacted sales in brick and mortar stores?
Max is a 100 per cent private label and we sell only through our stores and dedicated channels. So that way, there is no impact because of what happens online. We have our own site and now we are delivering 1 per cent business out of it. We believe it will grow into a healthy 5-6 per cent in coming years. We are looking at digital-enabled sales, because that is the way forward. It is an integrated way of fashion retailing.
Which is the best performing Max Fashion Store?
The best performing clusters are where you have young families with IT or service background. The best pockets are Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. We are doing extremely well in pockets like Navi Mumbai where we have three or four stores. All of them are doing really well. We also do well in Noida.
What is the idea behind going to these cities only?
Typically, opportunity to break into media and entertainment industry gets restricted to only main metros. Smart cities lack a suitable platform or access to showcase talent and gain entry into Bollywood, dancing and modelling. This is where MES provides not only a platform to showcase talent but helps groom regional winners to make it big in the entertainment industry.
What are the expansion plans for Easybuy? What is the percentage of Easybuy franchisee vs company owned stores?
Easybuy is a concept we launched basically for Tier II cities. When we launched Max in places like Jalgaon and Durgapur, we did not get a good response initially. We found that the customer base is different. Families in this region are into small businesses and trade. Their appreciation for global fashion is not that much for a brand like Max. They want good value for money, good quality product and very reasonably priced. They want trendy stuff but it may not be global fashion. We have termed them Navbharat customers. This concept is 30 per cent cheaper than Max and it is retailed through franchise stores. In Max, it is 80 per cent direct stores- company owned/company operated. Whereas in Easybuy, it is 100 per cent franchise. The idea is to focus on the product.
Published on: 23/03/2017
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.
