Crystal glitter on the Indian shore!

Retailer: How do you foresee Swarovski’s growth in India? What is its present growth rate?

Sukanya Dutta Roy (SDR): Swarovski has been present in India since 2000. And since then Swarovski is having a great success in terms of evolving market, great opportunity and strong customer base for crystal items. Swarovski has launched fashion jewellery 15 years back and recently we’ve launched watches. The company is a family-run business managed by the 4^th and 5^th generation. Last year we witnessed a growth rate of 25 per cent, whereas fashion in India is growing stronger at 35 per cent. The total turnover we registered last year is Rs 35 crore. 

Retailer: Do you have any special business strategy to capture the Indian market?

SDR: All the best sellers follow the same pattern of retailing across the globe. It is uniform everywhere. We’ve a strong culture of our own design. The core range is the same and we’ve been accepted quite well. The brand is presented here on the same international guideline, since we leverage on the same brand recall. We ensure the same comfort and the same ambience across the stores. Our communications are based on the same ATL and BTL programmes.

Retailer: How many retail outlets does Swarovski have in India and what are the retail formats available?

SDR: At present, we have 17 exclusive boutiques across 8 cities in India. These EBOs are managed by our partners. We help these partners to set up these boutiques as per our international guidelines but these are run as independent retail business. It’s a commercial deal where both the parties are benefited by such tie-ups. We have partners like AP Group in Mumbai and Crys Retail in Delhi. Also Swarovski is available from 14 MBOs located pan-India. 

Retailer: What kind of groundwork goes in for setting up a retail outlet of Swarovski?

SDR: We’ve been here for almost 10 years when there was all this hype around the retail sector doing the rounds.  And we’ve lived through this retail sparks and grown with the market. When we enter a new market, we generally partner with a large departmental store, like Shoppers Stop. We evaluate the interest, the enquiries about the brand in the market and only after getting a positive response do we think about setting up a proper boutique. But for setting up a boutique, we need proper environment like a prominent high street or a mall where other premium brands are present. I’m interested in setting up a Swarovski retail outlet in Kanpur but where is the retail infrastructure?

Retailer: Who is your target audience? What is the price range of your products?

SDR: It’s very very wide. Crystal targets senior and discernable customers who own a house and plan to décor their homes. It can be bought for gifting purpose on some special occasions like Valentine Day. For jewellery, the target audience starts from those aged 14-15 and then onwards there’s no age limit.

The price range is from Rs 3,000-Rs 50,000 for jewellery.; for crystal it is from Rs 6,000-Rs 2 lakh; and for watches it is from Rs 28,000 – Rs 78,000.

Retailer: How do you source your products? Where are these production centres located?

SDR: We source our products from Austria. There are a series of production centres in the country and Swarovski across the globe sources its merchandise from these production centres.

Retailer: How is Swarovski positioned in the Indian market?

SDR: We position Swarovski in the premium position, not in the league of luxury brands like LVMH. Our price points show that. We’d like to see Swarovski to be pegged at modern-luxe segment. Globally, we are very affordable and since we have uniform global pricing policy the same item becomes expensive here. But here we’re happy to be in the premium segment.

Retailer: Do some luxury product categories, for example jewellery or apparel, need to customize their products to suit the Indian preference?

SDR: See, India has a very strong domestic jewellery market and we are looking for where it has missed out, where’s the gap where Swarovski can offer something affordable. There’s a lot of research into it. It’s an integrated process. We’d always love to bring out some special range for the Indian market. For the Indian market, Swarovski is introducing jewellery line with gold look. Hopefully we will take it forward to see if the market supports us.