Internationally Branded

Pavers England has brought international customer experience to the Indian consumers through value for money products. Mr. Utsav Seth, MD & CEO, Pavers England, shares the Indian impact to the U.K based brand with Aadeetya Sriram.

 Aadeetya Sriram (AS): What is Pavers England all about?

Utsav Seth (US):  Pavers England is all about providing comfortable, leather premium footwear to the discerning Indian consumer.  We have been operational for the past 4 decades in the retail industry, based out of Yorkshire in England. We have more than 100 stores, dealing in shoes through internet, catalogue and our recently launched tele-shopping channel called Pavers Shoes.tv in U.K, selling shoes 24/7, which has received an enormous response since its opening. Pavers England has been known for comfortable footwear; we take pride in providing comfort, over the last 4 decades and we’ve established ourselves as a brand to reckon with. We came to India in 2008, initially we entered the country with Reliance Footprints, now we have 10 exclusive Pavers England outlets in the country, and we also operate through 55 different concessional stores of leading multiple brand outlets such as shopper stop and other leading brands. Our Pavers England product range is from 25-70 yrs.

AS: Where do you have your manufacturing units in the country?

US: We have a state-of-art R&D facility, which also is capable of producing half a million pair of footwear products, which primarily deals in exporting products to our global business. We have been sourcing shoes from India for the last decade or so, this has resulted in establishing a strong network of vendors across the country, who manufactures shoes for us. We have invested around 3 million$ in our R&D facility in the initial phase, and we plan to invest further 3-5 million$ in R&D in the next couple of years.

 AS: What in your opinion is the outlook of the Indian Retail scenario?

US: Indian retail scenario over the last couple of years has seen a huge upward turnaround, it’s moved on and we can witness a certain revolution waging in the Indian retail business. We believe and support the fact that, there will be further rapid transformation over the next decade, it’s just the beginning. At the moment, organised retail visibility is limited to the metro cities, there is going to be a phenomenal growth in this sector. The organised footwear retail is estimated at Rs. 4500cr, and the further projections and forecasting have indicated that this business will reach Rs.90, 000cr by 2020.

 AS: How did you benefit from the association with Reliance Footprints?

US: Reliance Footprints is an organised format, constructively well-thought format. Our association with them gave us the opportunity to showcase our products in an organised Multi Brand Outlet (MBO). Reliance is a professional brand, even currently we have a cordial relationship with them and aim to grow together with this partnership.

AS: How many stores do you have in the country?

US:  We have 11 exclusive franchise stores in the country, and we have 55 shop in shops including Reliance lifestyle, Central and we aim to have another 20 stores in the country within the next 6 months. We have our shop designs integrated in Singapore and later implemented onto the store interiors. The investment is fairly flexible as it ranges from location to location, the size of the store etc.

 AS: What has been your marketing strategy for Pavers England?

US: We involve ourselves in a lot of innovative marketing strategies; we adopt different measures from time-to-time, depending on what factors are favourable in the market.  It’s imperative that we prioritise our consumers  in providing them with high-quality products backed up by efficient services. 

AS: Talking about your design set-up, do you have any training process that you undertake?

US: We have a global research & development team, comprising of more than 100 people, headed by a team of Italian and English people, headquartered out of U.K, and considering the sort of capacity we have for our production units of around 4 million pairs; our processing and training go hand-in-hand.

 AS: Your annual global and Indian turnover for the year?

US: Pavers England worldwide has accumulated revenues of around 200 million$, and Rs.35cr in the Indian market, and we aspire to grow at 100 year-on-year basis for the next 3 years.

AS: What are your plans for Pavers England in India?

US: Initially our focus was to target the tier I cities, and we have achieved that with huge amount of success. But soon, we will be entering into tier II cities, like Cochin, Chandigarh, Pune, Coimbatore, and Ahmedabad. We will begin with our penetration in these cities within the next 2 years.