612 Ivy League increasing its retail and brand initiatives

Witnessing 70 percent growth since its launch in 2009, kids’ brand 612 League, aims to transform into a total wardrobe solution for kids’. It already has a label called Baby League for infants and toddlers to cater to the newborn segment. Also on the company’s agenda is to spread its reach across the country.

“We will continue to grow with the same pace in coming years. The market is big and penetration is low, so growth rate will be same. In a couple of years, we are planning to add more categories. The aim is to become a complete, umbrella brand for kids,” says Manu Indrayan, Co-founder and CEO, Indian Clothing League, the force behind 612 League.

Retail expansion on the roll

The company is adding new stores in NCR and is in the process of launching an aggressive marketing campaign. Elaborating on the initiatives Indrayan says, “Until now, we did not do anything like that but now brand positioning efforts are being intensified. This will help us to build the brand. Digital to print every kind of publicity will be a part of campaign. We just want to be the number one Indian brand, in next three years.”

The range was first placed with three to four large format stores like Shopper Stop. What started as a trial with four Shoppers Stop stores in the NCR region, increased to nine stores next season and 31 a season later. “We also have presence in other chains. We kept scaling up our retail operation as well as back-end capacity. We have around 360 retail points across the country located in more than 117 cities. Now we are working with all kind of retail formats. In large format, we have Shoppers Stop, Reliance, Arvind Lifestyles, Central and Globus. We also have about 21 exclusive outlets and plan to add 10 more in next one and half month. Most of expansion in this format will be in Delhi and Patna,” informs Indranyan.

The brand enjoys a strong presence in Rajasthan, NCR region and Bihar. It is available with 12 MBOs and the company would add another seven to eight, in a month’s time. This year, it covered the north east and now by Autumn/Winter, aims to enter Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The brands are placed online with leading e-commerce players like Myntra, Jabong, Snapdeal, Flipkart and Amazon.

Subtle yet trendy style for little ones

The brand was launched sighting a gap between what was available in the market and what the demand was for. “What was available was loud and overdone in their features and the need was for simpler and trendy clothing, in tune with international trends. So we categorized the kids’ wear market according to age group’s needs. We take 0 to 2 years as infant category, below 6 years as kids’ category and 6 to 12 as pre-teen category. There is a huge difference in preferences and demands among these groups, no one was addressing the 6 to 12 years age-group. So we launched 612 League for this segment and Baby League for 0 to 2 years’ age group,” explains Indrayan.

The brand offers an elaborate range. The collection includes knits, woven clothes for boys and girls. For boys, it has round neck T-shirts, woven shirts, T-shirts, Jamaican shorts, pants, denim, sweatshirts, tracksuits, sweaters and jackets. There is also a special category, which is a combination of shirts and T-shirts. For girls, the line has tops, frocks and woven dresses.

“We are a mass premium brand and target middle and upper middle class. We know that purchase in kids’ clothing is frequent as kids grow up fast. With that in mind we keep the range affordable. Fabrics used are 100 percent cotton, since comfort and quality are of prime importance. We get our own fabrics made and for woven fabrics, we have tie ups with mills,” Indrayan sums up.