Chendhuran Sundar
Managing Director SP Apparels Ltd
From Menswear to All, Soon
Headquartered at Singapore, Crocodile is a global fashion and lifestyle brand that set foot in India in 1993 by partnering with SP Apparels. In an interview with Paulami Chatterjee, Chendhuran Sundar, managing director of SP Apparels Ltd, speaks about the expansion plans ahead.
What has been the impact of Covid in terms of sales, staff cutdown, rentals, stocks etc?
Sales were dull in Q1 and part of Q2, but Q3 with festive season has done very well, especially in enterprise business outlets (EBOs), e-commerce, and distribution. The rentals have reduced a little to cope with the fall during the pandemic. The inventory has been well managed with liquidation and better than expected festive sale.
What has been your growth story in the last three years (excluding 2020)?
We have registered a growth of 40 per cent YOY starting from FY17-18 to FY 19-20 in terms of revenue as well as market presence.
Which are the categories the brand is into? What new categories are you looking at?
Crocodile is into apparel, footwear and accessories for men in the 25-45 age group and in the upper-middle-income group. We plan to introduce timewear and leather goods.
What is your market positioning like?
We cater to mid-segment menswear casual clothing.
What kind of brand building strategies do you implement?
We have plans of opening to 50 EBOs to accelerate brand presence and plans of engaging a brand ambassador for endorsements, aligning with the target audience.
What is your retail presence?
We have a distribution of 2000+ counters, and large MBOs. We currently have 48 EBOs in the south, east, and west zones, and 185 large format stores (LFS).
What is your brand's online presence?
We sell through e-commerce platforms like Myntra, Amazon, Ajio, and Limeroad.
What is the USP of your products?
We offer 100 per cent premium quality products under an international brand at affordable prices.
Which are your major markets in India and abroad?
Our major markets in India are Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala.
What are the top 3 qualities you look for in vendors, beyond the givens of quality, lead time, compliances etc?
We look for vendors who understand the requirement in terms of work culture, transparency, ethics, and cost-effectiveness.
How does your supply chain network work? Where are your vendors based at?
For India, we predominantly source only from India. Vendors of knits are from Tirrupur and Ludhiana, and for wovens, it is primarily Bangalore.
How is the supply chain expected to change with increasing digitisation, AI, VR etc? And how is this going to impact the business of sourcing?
This will certainly have an impact on the lead times and reduce delivery delays with better communication and clarity of information. Thanks to digitisation.
Sustainability and circularity are the buzz words today. How do you incorporate them into your product lines?
We are progressing towards sustainability and there are plans for organic cotton, recycled polyester in most of our products in the future.
What are your long-term sustainability goals?
In terms of long-term sustainability goals, Crocodile is progressing and integrating sustainability and there are plans for organic cotton, recycled polyester in most of our products. (PC)
This article was first published in the February 2021 edition of the print magazine.
Published on: 25/03/2021
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.
20230103183907.png)
