D’Cot to test market women’s and kids wear

D’Cot a leading apparel brand from Donear Industries is on an expansion spree. They plan to open 325 D’Cot stores by the end of the financial year 2010-11 and expand into the south market especially Andhra Pradesh. Donear Industries is best known for its suitings, trousers

and shirting fabrics. They went into apparel because ultimately fashion makes the difference. According to Sapan Surekha, President, Retail Division, D’Cot, the brand’s catchline is: ‘quality wear’. “We understand the fabric, design, futuristic trends. We give quality and style to the consumer. We are into value retail where we offer affordable fashion with quality. That has led to D’Cot’s success in the last three years.”
 
Currently, the brand only has exclusive brand outlets. “We have 228 EBOs. Right now our stores are in all state capitals. We are totally franchisee-driven and the average size of our stores are 500 to 700 sq. ft. some stores are of 1,500 sq. ft. these are in Baroda, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Indore,” says Surekha. The brand is also in hyper retail stores but not in MBOs. Surekha explains, “An MBO will not be ready to shell out the margins. In Indian MBOs, people still sell at a fixed price. Right now we do not plan to step into MBOs or large formats.”    
 
In order to generate sales and a higher brand recall the brand has roped in Vivek Oberoi. “He has a great recall value. Since we are into the value fashion format, there’s some synergy. We have tied up a lot of things with him in terms of store promotions, dinner dates. We are also in talks about movie tie-ups on merchandize designing etc. During the festival season, we would be having a limited edition collection by Vivek Oberoi,” opines Surekha.    
 
The company caters to the casual, formal and party wear segments through their brands Stylo (casual wear brand), Club Vogue (party wear) and D’Cot (formal wear). Zero wrinkle is their premium range. “Zero wrinkle is something we do on the fiber, which has wrinkle-resistant properties in 100 per cent cotton.  This is a premium formal range.” The company also has trousers, casual wear and formal wear, corduroys and denim wear. It’s a complete men’s wear wardrobe. However, now they have plans to move into women’s wear and kids wear as well. “We are doing R&D for women’s and children’s wear and looking at a small trial maybe this financial year. We will be test marketing women’s and children’s clothes. Whatever we do, it will be category-centric and a complete wardrobe. We will test market western wear in denim for women,” Surekha informs.
The company has achieved Rs 600 million as of right now. For 2010-11 they are targeting a 50 per cent growth. The company also plans to foray into e-commerce in the future.