A brand that sells a product every 2 minutes

Lacoste India, a French luxury brand is expanding its presence in tier II cities via franchise route. With a humble beginning in 1993 by opening its first two stores in Mumbai and Delhi, Lacoste India has expanded its footprint to 29 boutiques and 16 shop-in-shop spread over 50,000 square feet retail space in high streets and shopping malls of India. The brand caters to the need of about two lakh shoppers every year. At present Lacoste has a presence in 15 cities including one in Maldives. The brand claims of selling one Lacoste product every two minutes.

Explaining about the expansion plans, Rajesh Jain, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Lacoste India says, “Demographics, urbanisation and nuclearisation of families, rising affluence amid consumers and growing preference for branded products proved to be favourable factors. With precise evaluation and calculated risks, we have extended the brand to tier II cities by adopting franchise route and through select multi brand outlets.”

Lacoste chooses key locations to establish Lacoste boutiques and experience on the basis of location, catchment, project, target group profile, neighboring brands and access, brand segmentation and position periphery. Lacoste recorded developments in cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh and Jalandhar where boutiques registered an annual growth of more than 33 per cent in their revenue generation. Taking further the French lineage to select tier II cities, it wishes to continue increasing its presence through franchise model.

“We follow an outright model which is entirely based on buy and sell representation. The partners come into a Franchisee Owned- Franchisee Operated model (FOFO) where in, the complete boutique layout, ambience, staff and resources are managed on the basis of brand guidelines and virtues,” adds Jain.