The leading U.S. based kids’ wear retailer The Children’s Place is aggressively pushing its marketing efforts in India in hospitals. Well, the retailer is tying up with the hospital chains in the country to visit the patients in the maternity wards. The retailer is planning to present gifts to the newborns as well.
Arvind Lifestyle has made a franchisee arrangement with TCP (The Children’s Place). Regarding this, J Suresh, the Managing Director and CEO at Arvind Lifestyle stated that the retailer will launch 50 stores of the premium brand within four years.
Lately, many international kids’ clothing and accessories brands are foraying into the Indian market, and The Children’s Place is one of them. The brands are entering the Indian market in order to tap into the growing demand for the branded products. Also, it will fill the vacuum that is created by the failure of the domestic brands to scale up.
Pepe Jeans, the British denim brand is also in plans to launch its kids’ wear range in India this month. It will open 10 exclusive outlets in the country. Also, Jacadi, the French kids’ wear brand and Poney, the Malaysian brand will foray into the country.
As per the industry insiders, there is a gap in the children’s wear market as the Indian brands. The brands such as Gini and Jony, Catmoss, Lilliput, Jack n Jill and Weekender Kids have shut their shops completely or scaled down their operations in the past decade. The main reason for this is that they could not cope up with the rapid expansion expenditure.
Apart from these brands, Mahindra Retail’s Mom and Me that entered the market also closed almost one fourth of its outlets in just five years. The global brands are exploring the vast growth opportunities in the emerging markets as the birth rates and economic growth has slowed down in the western markets. Among the emerging markets, there is a distinct advantage in India as there is a capable economic outlook that is teamed up with rising kids’ population and rising spending on the kids.
The major challenge that the kids’ wear retailers face is that they need to have 8 to 9 sizes that is almost double the number of fits for the adults. This obviously pressurizes the supply chain. Apart from this, most parents expect cheaper prices as kids will outgrow the clothes within a year.
