Classic Polo launches CP Bro, plans more EBOs

Royal Classic Group best known for their men’s brand Classic Polo, has launched another label called CP Bro. “This is for the age group 18 to 26 offering affordable street wear. It has the best washes and fabric treatments." We have this brand in our EBOs and a few large formats. Later we will take it to MBOs,” informs Usha Periasamy, VP-Operations & Brand, Royal Classic Group.

The company started Classic Polo as a T-shirts brand and added wovens later. Woven range consists of shirts, trousers, lounge wear and denims. By Diwali 2015, the company is targeting business worth Rs five crore in denims alone. For winters, it has jackets, sweat shirts, pullovers and sweaters. The company also wants to take its EBO count to 100 by this year end and is expecting to close this fiscal for Classic Polo brand at Rs 130 crores.

T-shirts add power to the brand

Winter wear is just 5 percent of company’s product range. Though the south does not have a big winter market but Bangalore is catching up on lightweight sweaters and sweat shirts. The winter range also goes to Gujarat, MP, and Pune. However, brand’s strength is in T-shirts, which is round the year in south, east and west. For winter, the company produces full sleeve T-shirts and shirts. “T-shirts are 50 percent of our production; trousers 20 percent; shirts 15 percent; denim 5 percent and lounge and inner wear are 5 percent,” says Periasamy. “Earlier, we didn’t have heavy winter orders. International brands do their winter collection with us. Tom Tailor is one of them. We see international trends and fashion and are inspired from our in house supplies in terms of colours, designs, styles and trims. We are fast improving because winter wear is a huge market,” she adds.

Classic Polo has six factories, five in Tirupur and one in Dharapuram. The one at Dharapuram focuses only on woven products and Tirupur units are for knits. “We produce one lakh shirts, 50,000 denim pieces, 5 lakh trousers, 1 lakh lounge wear and 50,000 winter wear pieces a year,” avers Periasamy.

New EBOs on the cards

Earlier Classic Polo was serviced only through distributors. From 2003, it expanded into EBOs and large formats with its first showroom. “Today, we have 75 EBOs. About 90 percent of these are franchisees. We will have 100 EBOs by year end. We also have 149 large format doors. We are in Shoppers Stop, 70 to 80 outlets of Reliance, Brand Factory, Globus and Megamart. We also have 3,500 MBOs. There will be 15 percent growth in quantity terms here. We have 50 distributors in India. We market our products through promotions, print advertisements, flyers and hoardings.

The brand is also available with some online platforms. Right now the contribution is about 5 percent of the whole business. And as Periasamy explains, “The volumes we make from EBOs, large formats and MBOs is much higher than online buying. People still want to go to stores and touch the fabrics. They can try the piece on. Online buying is cumbersome. It’s only with round neck tees that consumers are willing to experiment with. But with high value products or products with high MRP they rather go shopping,” she sums up.