Fit-in fashion with credit
Fit-in fashion with credit

Levi's announced the launch of an EMI scheme, that allows jeans consumers across the country easier and more convenient access to the brand. Mr Shumone Chatterjee, Managing Director, Levi Strauss (India) Pvt. Ltd spells out the details.

Neha Malhotra (NM): Could you brief us about the EMI Scheme launched by Levi's? 
Shumone Chatterjee (SC):
Consumers in India have come of age, they want the Best, they want More and they want it Now!
With rapidly changing and globally exposed lifestyles, tastes and desires, consumers in India today are constantly considering and seeking out means to upgrade and update their wardrobes. In what may well become a “game changer” in the organised retail industry for premium branded apparel, the new EMI scheme announced by Levi's allows consumers to get into their favourite Levi's whenever they please, as often as they please, as much as they please, at no additional cost, and from anywhere in the Levi's brand’s wide network of Exclusive Stores! This enables many more young adults across the country access to the original, iconic and much-loved Levi’s brand!

NM: What are the options available to a customer under this scheme? 
SC:
This scheme is available on any and all purchases made at participating Exclusive Levi’s Stores across the top nine towns in the country. This scheme is applicable across all our product categories. 
All consumers need to do to access this scheme is buy merchandise at participating Exclusive Levi's Stores worth Rs1500 and above if shopping with an HDFC Bank Credit Card, or Rs 5000 and above if shopping with an Axis Bank Credit Card. They then need to opt to convert their purchase to an EMI transaction – which will be done on the spot at our stores, without any additional charges, or any additional documentation. This transaction amount will automatically get split into three easy equal monthly installments, and will appear on the next three monthly bills generated against the Credit Card used for this transaction. 

NM: Which banks have you partnered with to launch this scheme? 
SC:
One needs strong collaborators when attempting something as revolutionary as this, and we’re extremely happy to have with us two of the leading financial institutions of the country – HDFC Bank and Axis Bank – who will partner with us on this journey.

NM: In which cities is it applicable at present? Which cities will you be expanding this service to in the time to come? 
SC:
This program was test-launched in Bangalore in June this year. The success that it has met with has prompted us to immediately scale-up the program. In the first phase of scale-up, the EMI facility will be made available at Exclusive Levi's Stores across nine markets in India – with full scale roll-out completed by mid-Sep 2009. The first nine markets are – Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Pune. 

NM: What benefits will this scheme bring to customers as well as to Levi's as a brand? 
SC:
The benefits of the EMI Scheme are manifold, and manifest themselves differently for the various consumer groups Levi's caters to in India. The Scheme allows consumers already familiar with Levi's to engage with the brand more frequently. Even more significantly, it opens up the brand to a large number of new users who today already know and aspire to Levi's - but who may not have accessed it yet. Additionally, the scheme allows consumers to access and experience more of the brand’s product innovations – including the soon to be released Levi's Diva collection designed in collaboration with master-designer Tarun Tahiliani, and targeted at progressive young women across India. 

NM: What future do you foresee for this scheme to work for Levi's and the industry as a whole? 
SC:
At Levi's we truly believe this idea has the potential to change the apparel industry in this country. Consider that only four to five per cent of retail in India is organised, and then that only 20 per cent of that lies in the domain of Apparel and Lifestyle, and the kind of headroom this industry has to grow becomes clear! This initiative takes us closer to many, many consumers in the country and enables them to have easy access to the most iconic jeanswear brand in the world.


 

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