The Arvind Group expects its four-month-old business that allows customers to design and customise clothes to report Rs 100 crore in revenue within the first year of operation. The company projects its online venture, Arvind Internet, to make Rs 1,000 crore annually in three years.
The group plans to take the Creyate concept of digital stores launched in August to the international market as well. Although it is slightly early to plan a global expansion, the management is thinking of looking at markets such as the US, UK, Germany and Japan.
This model is not for volumes at present, but is a step towards Arvind’s international retail aspirations, the management said.
At present there are four Creyate stores: in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Gurgaon. These stores are like a design studio, with iMac computers installed in the centre for designing garments and swatch books for the touch and feel of fabrics. Customers can scan the designs which they like from the samples put up on display in these stores. The chosen design will appear on the computer screen, on which the customisation can be done.
The customised design will be picked up by the company’s manufacturing unit in Bengaluru and the finished product will be couriered to the customer. The Bengaluru manufacturing unit can make 400-500 garments a day without any manual assistance. The unit will cater to orders from across the globe.
At present the venture is driven more by the stores model rather than ecommerce. By mid-2015, it plans to have pop up stores on similar concept in places such as airports.
The group will very soon also start allowing customers to customise casuals, such as shorts and T-shirts.