Global fast-fashion brand, Being Human Clothing made its foray into the Indian market in January 2013 with its flagship store in Mumbai. Today, it stands at 23 EBOs (including one in Nepal) and 86 shop-in-shops in FY ’13–’14. Mandhana Industries has the exclusive worldwide licence to design, manufacture, retail, and distribute the brand.
Being Human was born out of Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s philanthropic initiatives. The brand started to support the twin cause of education and healthcare for the underprivileged for Being Human Foundation.Being Human Clothing made inroads into the European continent in Belgium, France and Spain in 2012. Its European distribution is set up in Bordeaux, France and it is servicing around 120 selling points. In the second phase, Being Human Clothing was launched in the Middle East in 10 countries including Bahrain, Dammam, Doha, Jeddah, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Riyadh and UAE with more than 120 selling points through the retail giant Splash.
Further developments in India have seen Being Human Clothing selling through more than 15 retail partners such as Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Splash, Jade Blue, All That Jazz and Chunmun amongst others. The brand has online stores on Myntra.com, Jabong.com and Flipkart.com in India and Landmarkshops.com and beinghumanclothing.eu in the Middle East and Europe respectively together selling to more than 60 countries.
According to Manish Mandhana, MD, Mandhana Industries: “The main challenge that we faced at the time of opening the first Being Human store was that there were already many stores existing then that offered great quality, design and merchandising. We had to come up with something unique and different in this aspect. Getting a good retail space was also one of the challenges.”
Being Human Clothing has a vast product range for men as well as women. From sweaters, denims, chinos, shorts, caps, belts, wallets, flip-flops, undergarments and boxers for men to denims, chinos, shirts, T-shirts, polos, hot shorts, tank-tops, scarves, sweaters, and tracksuits for women. The accessories range includes wallets, bags, belts and flip-flops. The brand has plans to come up with its kidswear collection soon. The price range for the product line is kept low, to suit all pockets. T-shirts are the best-selling product of Being Human. The average bill size is about Rs. 2,500.
Talking about the visual merchandising, Mandhana reveals: “I have an entire team of 15 people in my VM department. We lay a lot of emphasis on VM. An American architect, who used elements of old to form something new, has done our store design. There’s a lot of green and positivity in the store.”
“We have Salman Khan with whom most of the promotional activities are done. We have a very strong presence in social media. Salman and Being Human have a following of almost 20 million people. We follow all kinds of marketing channels,” added Mandhana.
Their future plan is to open around 25 more outlets this year and their focus remains on metros and Tier-II cities.
