Innerwear retailing is getting tougher

Kirti Kumar Chheda is a renowned name in innerwear business. He has been in this business for more than three-decades and operates two prominent innerwear stores in Malad, Mumbai, namely — Natraj C0llections and Natraj Plus. He also owns a thriving innerwear distribution business. He shares his observations on the business with Images BoF. By Rosy Ngaihte Sharma
Kirti Kumar Chheda entered the innerwear business in 1983 and opened his first store in Natraj Market in Malad and called it Natraj Collections. The store, which was spread across just 100 sq.ft., and stocked all the brands in innerwear that were available at that time. “Very few brands were prevailing in the market. The awareness about innerwear was not much but the market for innerwear was there as 80 percent of the ladies wore brassieres,” he recalls. Kirti bhai as he is popularly called, went a step ahead and also offered customised services from his store like making the size smaller or cup smaller and size big. Moreover, the manufacturers also cooperated by doing such things and helped in making odd sizes for customers by order. The hard work and initiative paid dividends and in 2003, he opened his second multi-brand store by the name of Natraj Plus in the same vicinity. It was a bigger store spread across 350 sq. ft. area. Today he is a renowned name in innerwear and besides operating his stores, he is also the chosen distributor of Extralife by Little Lacy and for the shape wear brand, Dermawear. These brands are distributed at 408 multi-brand stores in Mumbai and 16 in Pune.
When he started the business he faced a lot of difficulties. There was few brands and the ones that were had limited varieties. “Everything was limited and restricted. Moreover, ladies would feel shy to discuss buying innerwear openly. And most of the time I had to avoid making eye contact while showing a lady the products. Such was the scenario,” he recalls.
Even though the general trend in those days was that innerwear retail stores were being manned by males and they were closing the sales, Natraj Collections was among the few stores that had female staffs to attend the female customers.
Kirti bhai shares that today the customers have become bold and ask for what they want but in the past chaperoning mothers would guide their daughters when buying innerwear. Now there is also a sharp contrast between their choices. The preference of the daughters are very different from the choice of their mothers. “Girls buy brands and they demand different things, while the demand of the mothers are different. Thus today we have to attend to two different customers from the same family,” he shares, “furthermore, they used to buy one bra for all kinds of dresses but now they buy different types of bars for different dresses. Also, they are demanding privacy when doing their purchases. Previously there was no consideration for such things. But the customers today believe in doing their purchase discreetly and do not like others snooping at their buys.”
According to Kirti bhai, back then the requirement of the ladies were not met completely but then they were not aware of things like today’s women are so they didn’t realise this either. Today, they need a push-up bra, a low-cut bra, a side-wide bra, and so on, to match the various outfit they have.
In men’s innerwear Kirti bhai feels that there is not so much of a change. But he observes that the demand in loungewear and swimwear has risen. “Earlier this segment sold only 5-10 percent but now the demand has grown up to 35-40 percent. Lounge wear like printed shorts and billabong shorts are the most in rage,” he said. The coming of new segments in innerwear like night wear, lounge wear, shape wear, gym wear, etc., has given new opportunities to overall innerwear.

Brands then and now
“Brands like Libertina, Bridal Form, New Look, Sherry were the leading brands that were ruling the market at that time. Juliet, Lycosa and Sonari were beginners then,” he smiles. Today, his store has brands like Triumph, Amante, Enamor, Lovable, etc. “Triumph in India is like Victoria Secrets to the world. So when customers demand for superior range we show them Triumph,” he proudly shares. “Among the medium segment, Enamor and Lovable are the most preferred by the customers,” he added.
“In men’s innerwear, 40 percent of the market is dominated by Jockey. At present, Macroman is also doing good business. Rest there are small brands like Playboy and Chromosome which are doing good business but their share is around 10-15 percent in the market,” he further share.
Changing times
According to him with less brands, limited variety and lack of awareness he was perhaps doing much better business. His prime focus was to attend properly to his customers and give the product according to their requirement and ensuring she bought the right bra she needed. “I was making Rs. 30,000 a day. Today, I make between Rs. 1-1.10 lakh a day, but, today it is very tough, my store is filled with stocks from all the brands but just for a particular item a customer leaves and enters another store. I am facing the real challenge now, just because the customer has become so much more demanding. We have to be more alert towards customer demand.”
On e-commerce
Kirti bhai feels that e-commerce will not be a hindrance to his business, even if they offer the option of immediate returns. “We have trial rooms, the customer can try different brands in similar patterns whereas if she buys from online and if that particular pattern does not fit her she has to return it. And if the replacement again does not fit then she has to return again. This buy and return is a problem. But with us she can save a lot of time at the store and the female sales staff can guide her as well. So her problem is solved then and there,” he says confidently.