Fabindia is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it markets the idea of ‘experience’ as a premium offering. How else does one explain a blitzkrieg of “experience centre” launches in the last 10 months.

As on date, the company has an experience centre in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Bengaluru. On Wednesday, Chennai became the first city to have two such centres, each totaling to over 10,000 square feet. Fabindia will launch 12 such centres by the end of this year, and take that number to 100 in two years.

Focus On Experience

“Experiential shopping is something we are focusing on,” said Fabindia MD and CEO Viney Singh, in an exclusive chat with CNBC-TV18, “While there is no substitute to product, we have already been focusing on our product for 60 years. It’s time that we now provide a relevant experiential concept, through our experience centres.”

True to its name, some of the company’s experience centres house cafes and a play area for children, to make for easing shopping. So, what does Fabindia going the IKEA way mean for its business? Well, not much — but only for the moment.

“We have 300 stores across the country, and are launching 12 experience centres by the year end,” said Singh, “So, our experience centres account for only 4 percent of our total number of stores, but still account for 10 percent of sales.”

But that could change too. In two years, Fabindia hopes to have nearly 100 such experience centres up and running, a number of these stores in tier-2 and 3 towns like Chandigarh, Pune (to be launched this year), Dehradun, Agra, Jaipur, Mysuru, Coimbatore and Kochi.

Pricing Strategy

While Fabindia is offering experience as a premium, it has also begun taking a good hard look at prices.

“We are looking to strengthen our lower and medium price points,” said Singh. “Nearly 45 to 50 percent of our inventory is priced below Rs 2,500. We have now begun to focus on inventory priced below Rs 1,500.”

He added, “We aren’t cutting prices, but are just looking to increase offerings in lower price points.”

Along with re-focus on price points, Singh said the brand is also looking to pay more attention to non-ethnic, fusion wear.

Festive Cheer

While the company has braved sluggish retail sentiment this year, Singh hopes that the festive season will bring some cheer. “We expect the festive season to be better than last year, since last year saw weak sentiment on account of demonetization and GST,” he said.

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First Published:Oct 18, 2018 7:28 AM IST