Groggy to open 14 exclusive stores across India

Groggy the Canadian designer and sportswear brand that forayed into India nearly three years ago is planning to open 14 standalone stores across India in the next three years. At present the brand has three exclusive brand stores. “In 2010, we should have at least two to

three more stores. When we started in 2007, we were looking at opening a certain number of stores by 2009. But then the economic slowdown happened. Now, we should have 14 standalone stores in the next three years,” says Pradeep Arora, CEO, Trio Sportswear India that manufactures the Groggy brand in the country. Montreal-based Trio Group entered India in 2007 with JV partner Trio Sportswear India. The latter has a 66 per cent stake in the JV and the agreement is for 15 years.  The other brands in their stable are: Cream Soda, President Stone, Orange County, Nascar, Night Angels, Covet and the Simpsons.

Groggy a youth focused brand is best known for its printed T-shirts for boys. Their boys range also has a lot of shorts, jackets, woven shirts and denims. For girls they have T-shirts, woven tops, knit dresses and more. Arora says the reason why they tied up with the Trio Group is the huge amount of options the Montreal-based brand has under its umbrella. “President Stone is a very popular men’s brand while Cream Soda is a casual brand. Then there is Hansen, though we are not keen on bringing it to India. And there is Covet, an up-market brand,” Arora says. Trio Sportswear India is keen to start with a couple of these brands and then analyze how the retail is moving. Depending on how they fare, Trio would take a call on bringing in more brands. “So the first three years we’d rather have one or two brands and then we will keep modifying and building up the other brands,” Arora says. At the moment they have rights for Groggy, President Stone, Cream Soda, Covet, Back to Basics and Jalouze. However, they are focusing more on Groggy as of now. “For Groggy we have standalone stores but for the others we will have more shop-in-shops and so on,” Arora explains.

The group doesn’t intend to go into Tier III cities and will focus more on Category B cities like Dehradun and Jaipur. With an exclusive tie-up with Westside, it’s present in 18 of their stores. The plan is to take this figure to 25 by the end of this year.

Apart from garments, Groggy also has accessories, which includes jewellery and sunglasses. The brand is toying with the idea of introducing bags in the future.