Inspired by the bond and relationship shared between a mother and child, Little Kangaroos, the trendy brand of children’s apparels has come a long way in the last 12 years. Of course, even though it’s a kid’s wear brand a lot of its ideas come
from adult clothing. “In my category parents are the only ones who play a role. At least till children are three or four, its parents who decide what a child should be wearing,” says Arun Lalwani, Director, Romano Apparels, makers of the brand Little Kangaroos. Interestingly, even though they are aware of the popularity of various cartoon characters, the brand has consciously tried to stay away from them. Rather they like to promote their own prints and styles. “There are a lot of licensees who have approached us in the past. But we develop our own prints. We were certainly interested in tying up with some strong licensees but we thought we’d rather spend our money and effort in promoting our brand than promote any cartoon character. Cartoon characters sell a lot but have a short lifespan,” he says.
The brand’s focus is infants and toddlers. They do everything for infants and children up to 6 years of age. The product range includes T-shirts, bottom wear and upper wear. Little Kangaroos also has sub brand called Soft Threads for infants. It’s everyday wear. Another of their sub brand is called Marshmellows. It’s more of fashion and only for infants with softer colors and look. Play is their sub brand for toddlers 1 to 5 years. The economy brand has T-shirts ranging between Rs 199 to Rs 399 and bottoms from Rs 299 to Rs 499. Little Kangaroos is more about high fashion. “In Little Kangaroos we go up to 8 years. It’s has more of occasion wear, casual wear and fashion. Marshmellows is steeper. It has a more international look and the fabrics are azo-free and bacteria-free.”
When the brand Little Kangaroos was started 12 years ago, they decided to concentrate only on infants and toddlers because that’s where they saw a huge gap. Initially, they supplied only to a few stores like Pyramids and Shoppers Stop. Later, as it became popular in MBOs they spread out to 500 MBOs. “We have shop-in-shops in seven large formats, Globus, Shoppers Stop, Max, Central, Standard, Ritu Wears and Chunmun. We are also with Grab and The Loot. We have nine exclusive outlets and we export to South Africa, Dubai, Saudi, Australia, New Zealand, Kuwait and Bahrain. It’s done under our brand name. Now we are planning to go to Ukraine as well,” Lalwani informs. They have four EBOs in Mumbai, four in Delhi and one in Raipur. In 2011-2012, they plan to open three or four more EBOs. These will be in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. In large formats they see an increase in business of 15 to 20 per cent every year. A huge chunk of their business comes from the 500 MBOs.
The brand is also looking at expanding its product range. “Till last season we were doing sweaters on a small scale. But in autumn/winter 2011 we will launch sweaters in a big way. We are looking at undergarments and swimwear. In autumn/winter 2011 we will launch a campaign about the environment. We will donate to organizations. And there will be a fashion line to support the whole thing,” Lalwani sums up. Also on the anvil are exclusive EBOs abroad and an IPO.
