Oil and Grease aims to become a complete lifestyle brand

Oil and Grease kids wear has adopted new strategies to counter the challenge of diminishing sales. Door to door marketing is one of the strategy that the brand has adopted. It is now going directly to retailers and is much more aggressive than before.

Oil and Grease brand for kids is retailed across India. It is done through distributors and agents. The company has 15 distributors who cover more than 20 states. The brand is much widely present in North and West India in the MBO format. The brand is available at Chunmun and Ritu Wear stores. Six years ago, Oil and Grease was available through EBO retail but that didn’t work out as rentals in Mumbai were very high. The brand may return with the EBO format but it will be only after few years. The collection of kids wear includes jackets in jacquard, prints, corduroy and printed denim, shirts in knitwear fabric, bottoms in velvet among other products. Kids wear only has casual or formal, there is nothing like semi-formal or semi-casual. Kids between the ages 1-16 are the targets customers, even though most of the decision for the clothes are made by the parents.

Online sale of kids clothes a tricky business

Oil and Grease has experimented with online sales but it didn’t work for them. As Ratnesh Baronia, director, Oil and Grease explains, “Suppose we have about 13 sizes in kids wear but online if only seven sizes are popular and sold, six will remain. This will balance the total profit. Secondly online is completely run on discounts sale, so it does not make a profit-making business. Third, many people use it as a channel to sell their old stuff.” All this he believes affects the business. However, he doesn’t think that the online is a challenge for him as a manufacturer. What sells most online, he says, are electronics. Till now there is no conclusive proof of how much garments are contributing to the boom in online sales.

Market is dynamic

Oil and Grease has to keep up with fast changing fashion trends. Every season, fashion changes and so does people’s tastes. Today, people are more quality conscious as well as price sensitive. For kids wear it’s not the brands which matter, rather it’s the price. Parents prefer to go for good quality clothes even if they come at a low price. With so many choices available, competition hots up easily.

Oil and Grease mostly makes denims, cotton cargos, jackets and shirts. Their clothes are manufactured after a lot of research and development. Lycra is used for denim so as to make it more comfortable. Though Oil and Grease targets mostly boys, they have started making girls clothes too. It comprises only five per cent of the total capacity. As Baronia says, “We will grow in it, aiming to become a complete lifestyle brand.”