As the beauty industry of India becomes bigger, brands are understanding the need for following and expanding with a 360 degree model. Beauty brand today are not just about salons and products separately, but an effective amalgamation of both, along with consultations and advisories.
The TBC family is doing just that with skin care products, hair care products, cosmetics, express salons, salons, spas and slimming centres all under its blanket. TBC started in 2009 and started franchising in 2015. Looking at crossing Rs 300 crores in the next few years with its products business, the brand aims to be present in every nook and corner of India, but in a realistic and phased manner. Wellness India spoke to Aseem Sood, Managing Director, TBC about the brand and its expansion plans. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Tell us about the brand.
We’ve got a chain of slimming and beauty clinics in India. We‘ve got 32 beauty and slimming clinics pan India. We started franchising a year back under the brand name called TBC. This is the first time launched the concept called Express Salons in India where we offer 32 services under the price of Rs 149. The concept is to target the mass customer to enjoy beautiful services under the standard operating procedure by trained beauty professionals and good quality beauty products. We offer services like facials, manicure, pedicure, which no other brand in India is offering as of now at Rs 149. How we do it is because the products that we use are all manufactured by us and we give them the benefit of the manufacturing cost. That’s the USP of the brand. Last year, we started this concept even though this was at a nascent stage. Within one year, with the help of Franchise India, we did around 28 such salons.
We have another upper version called the salon. People started saying that we should add on premium services with the brand. In terms of salons, we offer chemical services like hair colour, and the facials that we do are all treatments. Then, we have a third concept which is called salon and spa, and the fourth one is called the slimming and beauty clinic, where all four verticals come under one single setup.
Along with services, we give a chance people to gain revenue from the product. We have over 550 products under the four brands that we have. We have TBC by Nature, Colour Care London, Flick and MS. So, our franchisees not only get benefit earning revenue from salon services, they get benefits from selling products under these brands. We give them 40 per cent margin from the MRP to sell the products.
What are your expansion plans?
Within one year, we’re looking at around 97-100 salons by the end of 2017-2018, all franchise-owned company operated or franchise-owned franchise-operated. In terms of products, we have around 527 distributors across India, we have 22,000 shops across India. Our products are used by not less than 14,000 salons. We are also launching new concepts. We’re adding TBC Makeup Studios, where we’ll be selling products under the brand Colour Care London and along with that we would be doing services like Express Make-ups. We’ll be launching a product called TBC diet clinics in the next one year.
What has been the revenue like?
We got Rs 62 crores the last financial year. This financial year, we’re looking at Rs 90 crore. We have a family of around 675 people working with us.
How old is the brand?
We started in 2009.
What is that one thing that you look for in your franchisees?
We don’t just look for the money when we’re looking out for franchisees. Today, you’re holding a Rs 500 crore brand. A franchisee needs to understand the business. If they do not understand the business, for him after 6 months, he may give it up, but it is the reputation of the brand that suffers. The passion and dedication towards the brand, how much time you can devote to the company is very important. The person needs to understand that this is the beauty business, it’s about touching the customer. It’s not like selling a product.
What is the investment that the franchisee needs to put in?
We have different models. The express model is around Rs 8 to 9 lakhs. How we are different from other express salons available in the market is that people offer only haircuts, we offer 32 services. Then, we give our franchisees products as well. Our franchise fee is lesser than other brands. We work as partners, so we walk hand-in-hand. We don’t just give away the franchisee.
What is your opinion on India’s beauty industry being unorganised?
Even if people come from the best of the brands, they have undergo a 7-day training at TBC so that they understand what TBC is. Secondly, every service has a standard operating procedure, we ensure that the service that’s offered in Delhi, is also as it is offered in Bangalore as well as Chennai because the customer today travels a lot, so we want our customer to get the same feeling everywhere they go.
But while it is an unorganised sector, these people are skilled. And we make sure that skilled people are treated well. We train both our franchisee and our staff.
Where do you India’s beauty industry 5 years from now? Also, where do you see TBC as a brand 5 years from now?
Today we are available in 22,000 shops in India, we sell products in three different categories. We have a retail category, so in the next 5 years, we are looking at our products to be available at at least 1 lakh shops. Secondly, we sell beauty advisories, so these are BA outlets. Today, we have 127 BA outlets, in the future, we look at around 500 BA outlets. Third, we sell our products salon to salon. Today we are available in 14,000 salons, tomorrow we look at at least 16,000 salons using our products.
In terms of numbers, we are looking at touching at least Rs 350 crore only in the product category in the next 5 years because the penetration is huge.
In terms of salons, it’s very easy to say that we look at 500 salons in the next 5 years, but being realistic, we’re looking at around 250 salons in the next 5 years, and we’ve always advised that growth should be there, but in a phased manner.
