BHPC: Aiming for a bigger pie of casuals market

Beverly Hills Polo Club, the brand, best known for the casual relaxed yet affluent and elegant Southern Californian lifestyle it offers, is now on an aggressive growth track. It’s looking at capturing a bigger share of the casual wear segment in

the country. As Anurag Rajpal, Executive Director- Apparel (Brands), Spencer’s Retail the retailers of BHPC in India says, “The real casual brands that started coming to India, all the big names, were not able to make casual wear affordable to Indian consumers. So that is the space which we felt offered the opportunity. We wanted to sign on a brand which would fill in this vacuum in the market. And that is where we got Beverly Hills Polo Club to India.” The brand that was brought to India in 2009 by Spencer’s Retail has gained popularity especially among the upwardly mobile urban young.

It targets 25- to 35-year-old lifestyle oriented consumers who strive for affordable luxury. The product portfolio consists of undergarments, socks, sunglasses/ fashion eyewear, fragrances luggage/handbags/ small leather goods, watches, belts and footwear. The brand having two labels namely Pony Rider and American Flag has chalked out huge plans of expanding its product portfolio. Their autumn/winter collection will have a new collection of jackets, sweaters, sweat shirts, long sleeve T-shirts, outerwear, apart from the regular core product like T-shirts, polo shirts, denims and trousers.

Meanwhile BHPC is in talks with some players to work out modalities of doing luggage and women’s hand bags. “Soon the brand will go in for product launches including the personal care category. It’s trying to get into the lifestyle space with multiple categories. We will launch deodorants, fragrances, luggage, back packs watches, sunglasses, etc. There may be bed and bath categories and some other categories also. Some of them are already selling in our stores and some will be added in autumn/winter 2011 or a year’s time,” explains Rajpal.

Further the brand is all set to step into the kids segment also. It will offer smart casuals which will include tees, polos and denims. In winter, there will be sweat shirts, sweat pants and so on. The range will be for 6 to 14 years. The brand also aims to strengthen its women’s line.

This is not all they are also looking at expanding all channels of retail even though at the moment they are standalone centric. The brand operates 22 EBOs and plans to push up the store count to 40 by March 31, 2012. These will be mostly in Tier I and II cities. So far BHPC has been a north-centric brand with a little presence in the west. It now plans to increase presence in the west and south. In large formats, they have just started with Central. By spring/summer 2012 they aim to start operations with other large format stores. “Distribution has been done in a selective and controlled manner and has primarily been retail driven. We are doing selected distribution in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. With MBOs we are present on a small scale in about 15 to 20 of them. We are trying to focus on shop-in-shops inside these MBOs. Our main distribution business will start in May 2012 and will have probably 100 doors by then,” sums up Rajpal.
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