Enamor, enticing women with Smooth

Gokaldas Intimatewear, makers of Enamor, an eight-year-old lingerie brand developed in India for the Indian woman are currently focusing on expanding their retail base. Present in five EBOs they are looking to increase the number of EBOs to 10 this year. They are also planning

to move into Tier II and III cities. Debashis Chatterjee, CEO, Gokaldas Intimatewear explains, “Our total distribution is 1,000 outlets — MBOs, retail chains, everything inclusive. MBOs contribute the largest percentage of our business as compared to EBOs and large formats. But an EBO is where we can provide the customer a better experience. Hence, we are trying to make our EBO footprint a little bigger than what it is. To increase our brand availability further we have planned to target Tier III cities more assertively.”  The brand is already present in cities like Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata. In order to increase their business and visibility they are also looking at franchisee options to make the full range of their brands available in more places.

Enamor’s best-selling item is the bridal range which has products like Dress-up 75. It has been on top of the bridal sales charts for the last three years. It’s available in bright jewel colors that go well with a trousseau. Dress-up 98, 96, 95, 97, 99 are recent launches that are lace-molded. “In any season we bring in eight to ten products. We look at our products in terms of what they do for the customer. We have a range of products called ‘Smooth’, which gives one a smooth rounded contour under tight fitting outer garments like a T-shirt. In terms of sales it has been doing very well in the last six months to a year,” Chatterjee explains.

Unlike the rest of the garment industry or the outerwear industry, a large proportion of lingerie products are meant to continue over many years. “It’s a big challenge if a product has a three-year lifecycle to keep it looking fresh and relevant. Color variation is one option. For a simple cotton bra that has been selling in basic colors, you add colors like lime green or baby pink. But a large number of customers don’t want even that. They’d rather buy whatever they have been buying for the last few years. So you manage to make your display look a little fresh,” he says. Enamor manages to do this through visual merchandizing, communications, brochures, catalogues and through lifestyle imagery to make sure it’s contemporary.

The company has grown by 50 per cent over last year and they expect a growth in excess of 40 per cent in year 2010.