Delhi-headquartered Cantabil Retail India Ltd was founded by Vijay Bansal in February 1989. It stepped into the garment manufacturing and retail business in the year 2000 with the opening of a store in the national capital. In a chat with Fibre2Fashion, Shivendra Nigam, CFO, Cantabil Retail, gives an overview of the company's growth story and its plans for the future.
What has been your growth story in the last three years (excluding 2020)?
The company is growing at a 30 per cent CAGR for last 3 years, and we are targeting the same growth in the coming years with moderate growth plan.
What are your long-term goals?
Cantabil has a dedicated team of professionals working around the clock to put forward the latest designs, while assuring the best quality. However, new customer acquisition and retaining them in a very competitive market is challenging. We have designed and further aligned our marketing strategy in a way so that sustainable growth can be achieved. We have an excellent percentage of repeat customers which is building a very strong foundation for growth.
Our expansion is targeted in tier II and tier III cities along with the increased demand in tier 1 cities. The expansion strategy is supported with highly optimised operation cost which gives the process long term sustainability.
What has been the impact of Covid in terms of sales, staff cutdown, rentals, stocks etc?
There is no denying the fact that the pandemic led lockdowns affected the cash flows of businesses and revenues are lower due to high proportion of fixed expense. However, we witnessed better-than-expected demand and recovery in the second half of the financial year due to the opening of the economy.
How does your supply chain network work?
The company has its own centralised supply chain network spread across the nation with a very simplified process which begins with two of our warehouses. One in Delhi and the other is our manufacturing facility in Bahadurgarh. All merchandise, which is procured and produced, gets stored in these centralised warehouses, which then are sent to all stores in all regions across India.
Where are your manufacturing facilities based at? If working with vendors, where are the vendors based at?
We have a state-of-the-art, world class manufacturing plant in Bahadurgarh, Haryana, spread across a built-up area of 1.50 lakh sq ft to fulfil one-third of the company's own requirement. Rest of the company's demand is being fulfilled by dedicated fabricators and FOB vendors. These vendors and fabricators are mainly based in NCR area and Ludhiana.
What is the annual production capacity?
The production capacity of the manufacturing plant in Bahadurgarh is 10 lakh garments per annum. Whereas rest of the demand is being fulfilled by dedicated fabricators and FOB vendors. However, the company is planning to double the capacity of the plant in Bahadurgarh in the coming years to meet the increased requirement with the company's expansion.
What kind of machinery does your manufacturing facility boast of?
The manufacturing facility at Bahadurgarh is highly modernised and equipped with all imported machinery. They are fully automised and no manual intervention is required throughout the process starting from cutting of fabric till the finishing of the garments.
Coming back to the brand Cantabil, which categories is the brand into?
We cater to the entire family with our line of menswear, womenswear, kidswear and accessories.
Who are your target audience?
The company's target audience are consumers in mid premium segment.
What is the USP of your products?
Value for money -- good quality at competitive pricing.
Which category sells the most?
Generally, it is the men's category that sells the most, which includes shirts, denims, trousers and t-shirts. And, in winters suits, coats and blazers do quite well.
What is the retail presence of the brand?
Cantabil, at present, has 300+ stores across 17 states and plans to open some additional stores by the end of 2020, largely in tier II and tier III markets.
What is your brand's online presence?
We sell through e-commerce platforms such as Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm.
Which are your major markets in India?
Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, UP, Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujrat. (PC)
This article was first published in the February 2021 edition of the print magazine.
Published on: 19/03/2021
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
