India : Pantaloon To Phase Out Menswear Brand

Pantaloon Retail is phasing out its menswear brand Pantaloon. The private label, which has been around for 15 years, has created a niche for itself in the metro cities.

"We are discontinuing the Pantaloon brand because we want to position Pantaloons retail outlets as complete family stores. So, we felt that Pantaloon's special association with men's trousers was not in sync with our retail strategy,"said Pantaloon managing director Kishore Biyani.

The company is planning to fill the slot vacated by Pantaloon trousers by John Miller, which will now be repositioned as a complete menswear brand. Earlier, John Miller was restricted to mid-range shirts.

Mr Biyani said the company's private labels such as Bare, HNY, Annabelle, Scotsville, Ajile, T 2000, Srishti and John Miller generated 70% of the company's revenues while the remaining 30% came from brands such as Levi's, Arrow, Reebok and Nike. "The idea is to create an ambience where the family can shop at affordable prices," he added.

After putting up 14 Pantaloons stores and six Big Bazaar hypermarkets, Biyani is setting up the country's first seamless mall Victoria modelled after Selfridges in London and Central in Bangkok.

"Spread across 1,20,000 sq ft, the Victoria mall will do away with in-between walls and offer a seamless shopping experience. The mall will house the best lifestyle brands and services such as health clubs, pubs and nightclubs and will be managed by the Pantaloon group," he said.

"Mall developers have so far been merely selling real estate. The fact that retailers are getting into mall management to create strategic clusters of brands to enhance footfalls indicates a clear upward movement on the retail value chain," said a real estate expert.

According to Biyani, with a turnover of Rs 400 crore and net profit of Rs 8 crore (June 2001-March 2002), Pantaloon is looking at generating Rs 1,000 crore in revenues by 2005. "At the moment, we are managing 6 lakh sq ft of retail space. By 2005, we want to manage one million sq ft," Biyani said.