"Despite Slowdown We Continue to See Traction From Consumers": Manjari Upadhye

SPACES, a premium home textiles brand from the house of Welspun. Welspun India is a textile company based in Mumbai.It is Asia's largest and the 2nd largest Terry Towel producer in the world. It exports more than 94 per cent of its home textiles products to more than 50 countries. In an exclusive conversation with Manjari Upadhye, CEO Domestic Business, Welspun India Ltd sheds light how the brand is winning the negative slowdown. 

Home textile category has started getting high traction during festive sales. How is SPACES leveraging this trend?

Festivals are a key occasion of celebration in India & festive season presents an opportunity for our category as bed sheets & towels are thoughtful and convenient gifts.Festive buying and gifting is an opportunity which remains relatively under leveraged by brands in the category.

SPACES is leveraging the trend since 2018 with our festive gifting collection – Rangana, which is inspired by traditional arts forms. It is limited edition collection meant to leverage festive period sales across the country, be it Pujo in East, Dussehra in South & West, or Diwali across the country. The collection celebrates the exclusivity of Indianartforms& each theme in the collection draws inspiration from the colors, motifs and styles ofartforms peculiar of diverse regions across India. Ranganathus brings home the celebratory diversity of our country. 

Since this vivid collection received very favorable response from the consumers last season, we have re-introduced Rangana 2.0 for festive season of 2019. We are running an integrated campaign by promoting Rangana on multiple consumer touchpoints across online & offline channels.

Have you seen any impact of sluggish economy? How’s is the consumer sentiments this time?

Indeed the economy is slow moving, the repercussion being consumers who are more & more focused on seeking value offering. However we still continue to see traction from consumers who are seeking differentiated products offered by SPACES. 

Which are your uptick products in the ongoing festive period?

Our limited edition festive gifting collection – Rangana is primarily our uptick product to leverage festive period sales. Our other innovative products like HygroCottonTM& Bamboo Charcoal collection are also fast moving with consumers all-round the year & especially during festive season.

Do you see any competition from brands operating in this category as far as Diwali sales are concerned?

In India bed & bath home linen is a majorly unorganized category, with merely 4% to 5% being branded product share & few key brands operating in the market. They are all active in promoting their products during Diwali since it is a key sales period & this healthy competition is desirable to uplift the total share of branded products in the category.

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