Sleepwear and innerwear will be the new segments the company is looking at in addition to ethnic wear, home products and branded garments in the next three years
Mumbai: Raymond Lifestyle Ltd. (RLL), the listed entity created by demerging Raymond Ltd.’s lifestyle business, will focus on sleepwear and innerwear to achieve the next level of growth in the next three years, CEO Sunil Kataria said.
While the company has already launched sleepwear for men under the brand name Sleepz by Raymond in September this year, it will launch innerwear in the coming months.
“These are obvious adjacencies. By getting into essentials, we are completing the men’s look now. This is less of fashion, more of lifestyle,” Kataria said.
Sleepwear in India is largely an unbranded market, traditionally dominated by local players in every city.
“Since there are no syndicated studies, the sleepwear market size is anybody’s guess—Rs12,000 crore, Rs15,000 crore, Rs20,000 crore… But the game is of thousands and thousands of crore… and the intent here is to disrupt and democratize this category by launching a large national brand, with best-in-class products at affordable prices,” he said.
Kataria added that pricing has been given great consideration as the company wants to capitalize on the trend of Indians shifting from unbranded to branded products. Therefore, Sleepz By Raymond t-shirts and boxers are priced at Rs 500 each, while kurta pyjama sets are priced at Rs 950. The company is setting up a separate distribution network of small outlets, across the country.
SleepZ is expected to contribute Rs 500 to 700 crore to RLL’s revenue by financial year 2027 as per media reports.
Innerwear will be an important pillar of the business, going forward. RLL is launching men’s innerwear at a mass premium positioning under the Park Avenue brand.
“This is getting rolled out in a matter of three to four months from now,” he added. Innerwear too will have a separate distribution network, and the company is looking at hitting the top 25,000 outlets of innerwear in the country over the next 18 months.
In addition to essentials, the company will also focus on ethnic wear and refreshing its other branded apparel business.
“These are the new parts of the business. The new multipliers, growth factors,” Kataria said.
In Ethnicwear, the company is eyeing a 7% share of the Indian weddingwear market.
“We have created a 120-store footprint within a matter of 18 months of launching Ethnix. We will expand these stores to 350 to 400 stores by 2027,” Kataria said.
Branded Apparel
Raymond intends to establish Raymond’s readymade apparel as premium fashion wear led more by formal but also adding a tinge of casual, Kataria said.
Raymond sells branded apparel under Color Plus, Park Avenue and Parx and Ethnix by Raymond brands, which together account for about 400 exclusive brand outlets (EBOs). In addition, it has 1050 The Raymond Shops (TRS). About 75% of these are franchise owned with the rest being company owned and operated.
“We have 100 odd stores of Raymond Ready to Wear. We are going to take it to two and a half times in the next three years to reach around 250-odd stores,” Kataria said adding that the company will maintain the franchise-to-owned store ratio.
Park Avenue will be a hybrid brand—which will have formals with a lot of casualization and performance products such as trousers made with Flextech, a stretchable fabric or shirts made with a fabric called Fearless, where a wearer can just rub off a coffee or juice spill.
“In Park Avenue and Colour Plus we are refreshing the look of the stores as well. Our stores have been jaded in the past. Obviously, in the last seven years, we have not done enough on this. Now, we are rolling out stores in line with this new brand identity. A new store along the lines has come up in Jaipur recently,” Kataria said.
Other focus areas
The Mumbai-based company has identified home products, as part of its growth plan. However, it does not intend to focus on it in this phase. “It’s not as strategic for us in the light of other larger initiatives. So, the home business will stay there,” Kataria said.
The company sells bed and bath linen under the branding Raymond Home through multi-brand outlets and large department stores. “We have tied up with Reliance in a big way. So, we go largely through them, and we have our direct retail channels,” the CEO said adding that the company does not intend to launch Raymond Home EBOs at this point.
Overall, Raymond intends to add 800-900 outlets across its brand portfolio in the next three years. In addition, it is also eyeing a deeper foray into international markets. Raymond is currently in Bangladesh, Qatar, Nepal, Saudi and the United Arab Emirates, with 50 stores.
“We are now looking if there is a bigger opportunity in GCC, and especially Saudi and UAE for us. That’s why we are trying to put a fresh blueprint together and we’d like to do it in the next six months,” Kataria said adding that they will be and they will be primarily TRS format.
Raymond Lifestyle Ltd. went public on 5 September.
