Sri Lankan high street fashion brand Avirate–owned by the Timex and Fergasam Group, that has entered India one-and-half-years back is drawing up an aggressive expansion plan. The company plans of opening up outlets in five to seven cities in India in the next two quarters.
“We have strong expansion plans in place for India which includes reaching out to cities like Goa, Hyderabad, Noida, Gurgaon and Thane in the next seven to eight months. We are looking at a nearly $1 million (around Rs 5.8 crore) investment for this expansion,” said Jahid Osman, managing director, Aviraté India.
To be able to penetrate better into the Indian market the company has partnered with Fashion 365 to market and distribute Avirate.
Osman believes that growth in tier II cities has not yet been tapped by other players. “Our research and analytics teams operating in India, Sri Lanka and the UK work closely together to forecast trends and customer requirements. We produce our garments accordingly and do not hold much inventory. When the brand offers what a consumer requires and updates are maintained via constant communication, attracting walk-ins to the stores becomes easy,” said he.
To be able to compete with some well known international brands, Aviraté says it offers a new collection every month after researching and analysing the consumer’s requirements. The brand offers various fashion products like dresses, tops, bottoms, lingerie, bags, shoes, accessories and scarves.
Apart from opening a second store in Pune, the company is looking at international geographies like Australia, Dubai, Singapore and Canada.