Titan eyeing unorganized Indian handloom saree market!

With Taneira, Titan Co has foryed into women’s handloom saree category. Taneria was soft launched in February 2017 at Bengaluru’s upscale Indiranagar, marking its entry into the women’s wear segment. Recently, the company has opened its first flagship store at up-scale market of South Delhi. The 7,000 sq. ft handloom store is designed to cater young urban woman looking for traditional Indian weaves with contemporary designs.

What was rationale behind foraying the handloom category?

This is 5000 year old category which was waiting for transformation since long. If you take the example of jewellery industry, it was infected with sufficient or more supply by the transformation has happened in 24 years. Over the years, there has been drastic change in consumers’ behavior; hence, all the categories should change as per new Indian customer. Indian women have evolved immensely and with Taneria we want cater modern Indian women. We are determined to bring transformation in this category.

Brands such as Fabindia, Khaadi amongst others operates in similar category. How do you differentiate Taneira from these brands?

No doubt, these are deeply admired brands. Fabindia is certain brand language and the brand operates in multiple categories, whereas, what we are doing is very different. We are one product category and this is the fundamental difference between us and others. We don’t see them as the competition; we have our own design philosophy which is very different to these brands. We have very different approach to this category as our focused is only on sarees. Moreover, this is an evolving market and there is an enough room for every player and would give more power to eco system.

What is the current footprint for Taneira? What would be the strategy to scale up the distribution?

We have two stores in Bangaluru, and recently we have opened at Ambience mall vasant Kunj. Today, we have opened our first flagship store at South Extension, New Delhi. All four stores that we have opened so far are company owned. The flagship store is spread across 7000 sq.ft area.

In fact, we have just started our online foray as well where we feature some part of our collection. However, to explore entire collection, a visit to physical store is must.

Is there any plan to start franchising for brand Taneria? Also how many stores are in pipeline by end of this financial year?

We will feature out as we go along as far as store expansion is concerned. Titan as a group is known for franchising. However, for brand Taneria, it is too early to comment anything.

What are the plans to expand the category beyond women’s range? Is there any plan to introduce men’s line in near future?

We have very agile approach in understanding customers’ need. If there would be growing demand of men’s range, we will be look into the same. As of now, the focus is on women’s category only.

What is the entry and exiting price point?

Our range starts from Rs 1000 and goes up to two and half lakhs.