Intra-Departmental Coordination of Buying

Department of Women’s Western Wear for

UNLIMITED

Submitted by:
Sachin
MFM/18/335
 INTRODUCTION
APPAREL
INDIAN FASHION INDUSTRY
RETAIL
MEN’S WOMEN’S KIDS’
WEAR WEAR WEAR
ORGANIZED UNORGANIZED
RETAIL RETAIL INDIAN
WEAR

• Rs 2,97,091 crore WESTERN

(US $46 billion) WEAR
• 9.7% CAGR INDO
• Rs 10,25,050 crore WESTERN
(US $1,576 billion)
by 2026 INNER
WEAR
Source: fiber2fashion.com
 VALUE SEGMENT
• Between the budget and
Lux luxury segments
ury
• Rs 1780 Crore
Seg
me ($2.5 Billion)
nt
Bridge to Luxury • Rs 1068 Crore ($15 Billion) by
Segment 2023
• Huge sale volumes to create
profit
Premium Segment • Balance between cost and
quality
• Max, Pantaloons, FBB,
Value Segment Unlimited etc.
ARVIND

Source: Arvind Brands website

 ARVIND

HERITAGE LIFESTYLE BRIDGE TO BEAUTY VALUE

BRANDS INNERWEAR BRANDS LUXURY BRANDS RETAIL

Source: Arvind Brands website

 UNLIMITED
• Megamart: Value department chain of Arvind Lifestyle Brands
Ltd. Started in 1995 as a discount outlet to liquidate old stocks

• ALBL rebranded nearly 25 Megamart outlets of more than

10,000 square feet each as Unlimited in 2015

• Arvind sells premium brands such as Arrow, US Polo and

Flying Machine at Unlimited stores but focuses more on mass-
priced franchise brands such as Cherokee

• The stores mostly stock full priced merchandise with an added

focus on women and kids wear
 ELLE STUDI0

• ELLE STUDIO is a sub-brand of ELLE which is a French

Brand positioned in market for Premium Western
wear product.
• The brand has been created as a ‘value’ line from the
house of parent brand Elle to be retailed exclusively
out of UNLIMITED stores.
• Segmented under ELLE (Paris), ELLE STUDIO will act
as a Bridge to fill the price, product and fashion
quotient gap currently in their offering.
 DEPARTMENT DIVISION
Department Division of Arvind Lifestyle - Unlimited

Women Men Kids

Western Wear Ethnic Wear Cherokee Men Cherokee

Elle Studio Anahi Cherokee Jeans Karigiri

SUGR Bronz Colt Colt

SUGR Active Karigiri Ruggers Donuts

Cherokee Izod

Colt Excalibur
 DEPARTMENTAL HIERARCHY
UNLIMITED

Himanshu
Chakrawarti (CEO)

BD & MARKETING
OPERATIONS PLANNING BUYING SCM DESIGN FINANCE HR & VM

MEN’S WEAR WOMEN’S WESTERN KIDS’WEAR ETHNIC WEAR

WEAR
Category Category Category Head
Head Category Head Head (Ankur (Garima)
(Naveeta) (Kim) Bansal)

Head Buyer
(Manu Srivastava)

Buyer (Shipra
Singhai)
 BUYING DEPARTMENT

• Designers handover their catalogue to buying team

to do Range planning
• Receives development sample
• Fit sample is send by the vendor
• PP sample
• Responsibility of buyer to check whether shipment
reaches warehouse at right time or not
 PATTERN MAKING (TEMPLATE)

PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT
TECHPACK SAMPLE
LAB DIP
SHIPMENT SAMPLE
STRIKE OFF SAMPLE

PRE-
PRODUCTION
SAMPLE

SAMPLING
TECHPACK
BUYING PROCESS
 DESIGN

• Designer first do research, they follow LAKME

fashion weeks, take the reference from WGSN
• Prepare mood board, inspiration, graphic designs,
season color, and silhouette
• Give Line presentation in meeting
• Hand it over to buying team
RANGE BOARD
 SOURCING DEPARTMENT
• Bridge between the designers, the buying team and the
vendors
• Communicates and take follow up that development
sample should be prepared between 45-60 days,
overview sampling, negotiate with the vendors.
• Sourcing team has the responsibility to get the bulk in
warehouse 90- 120 days
• Sourced the fabric within the budget as per buyer’s
requirement
• Calculate costs of procurement and suggest methods to
decrease expenditure estimate risks
 PLANNING

• Classify stores according to demographic

• Assortment planning
• Allocate MRP grid (OTB)
• Allocation and store fill
• Season planning
• Budgetary planning
• Inventory planning
 MARKETING

• Campaign development
• New idea development
• Handle fashion shows
• Also work on seasonal ads
• Develop EOSS ads- prints, radio, digital
• Organize photo shoots for E-commerce, buying, media
COMPETITORS SEASON ANALYSIS

Competitor Brands
• Max - Work Wear
• Pantaloons - Annabelle
• Reliance Trends - Fig
• Westside - Wardrobe

Aspirational Brands
• Mango
• Zara
• Promod
• Cover Story
FINDINGS & SUGGESTIONS

CLASS MIX
KNIT/WOVEN MIX
TOP/BOTTOM MIX
 MRP-WISE OPTION COUNT
ELLE STUDIO
MRP DRESS FBT KNIT BOTTOM WOVEN TOP Grand
TOP Total
499 8 8
599 2 8 7 17
699 8 15 24 47
799 6 10 19 35
899 6 1 9 16
999 13 10 23
1199 6 6 12
1299 10 10
1499 2 2
Grand Total 37 16 34 16 67 170
 WARDROBE ANNABELLE
MRP DRESS FBT KNIT BOTTOM WOVEN Grand MRP DRESS FBT KNIT BOTTOM WOVEN Grand
TOP TOP Total TOP TOP Total

699         4 4      
799   2 2
999     4   7 11 899     2   13 15
1299     10   26 36 999     6   21 27
1499 1     2 6 9 799         1 1
1699 5     6   11 1199       7 1 8
  1299       6   6
1899 2       2
1499 2     7   9
1999 2         2
1599 8         8
2199 2         2
1899 2         2
Grand 12   14 8 46 80
Total Grand 12   8 20 38 78
Total

MAX WORK WEAR FIG

MRP DRESS FBT KNIT BOTTOM WOVEN Grand MRP DRESS FBT KNIT BOTTOM WOVEN Grand
TOP TOP Total TOP TOP Total
399     9     9
499     4   15 19
599     16   10 26
699     7   27 34 699     12   7 19

799         8 8
799 4       29 33
899       1 1 2
999 1     6   7 899   1   4   5
1199 10         10
1299 3         3 999 4     2   6

1399 4         4
Grand 8 1 16 6 55 86
Grand 18   32 7 46 103 Total
Total
 OBSERVATIONS
• Market moving to prints specially to flower, abstracts & animal
• Changing MRP brackets example, in other brands, occasional wear were of
starting range 1299 MRP and Elle Studio is offering the same in 999-1199 MRP.
• If we don’t have styles that other brands are doing and are selling good, buyer can
additional buy the style and fill the top stores first.
• Houndstooth patterns are seen in many stores and we are doing only a few high
waists.
• Taking inspiration from Wardrobe, need design intervention in full length dresses
• Solids are still in trend in earthy color combinations
• Annabelle offers a lot of shirt options (20 around options) in 699-999 price range
which are not there in Elle Studio
• Skinny solid tops like ZARA
• Could include more pants and skirts in bottom wears
• Could use more pastel colors as the whole range was around black, white & red
colors
• Trend of tie neck was seen in the market
 LEARNINGS
• Came to know about the work process of the buying department and
responsibilities of a retail buyer
• To understand the buy plan of a season which contains all information related to
each individual style
• To learn retail terms and formulas like Buy Mix, Sales Mix, ROS, Sell Through, etc.
• Frequent usage of important excel functions like VLOOKUP, pivot table and
formulas
• Sales analysis of past seasons to identify the bestselling styles and its attributes
on the basis of buy mix vs. sales mix, ROS (rate of sale) and sell through
• Understand the competitive market, what is trending in the market and to know
the number of options, styles, colors, pattern, etc. in the competitors’ collection
• How to read tech pack
• Came to know about different fabrics used
 CONTRIBUTION
• Suggested the Marketing/Visual Merchandising Tool ‘Style Wheel which
was selected for Annual Company Meeting
Style Wheel

Visual Merchandising Tool at Arvind’s

Unlimited Stores in Bengaluru which was
developed on my idea for the same
 CONTRIBUTION

• Suggested to work on digital platforms with the help of Search

Engine Optimization’ which is one of the main reasons of Arvind’s
down going
• Research on Store Visual Merchandising and suggested changes to
the stores on the basis of dimensions, experience, assortment,
balance, colors, focus point, signage & mannequin styling etc.
• Research on youth preferences of fashion basic tees for the
reference pictures of Elle Studio
• Made attribute sheet for BCG for styles, trends predictions
• Made catalogue presentation of Elle Studio
 CONTRIBUTION

• Made PPT for Product Shoot and manage the photoshoot for the
Unlimited women western wear category
• Maintained Elle Studio SS19 Hit 1 And Hit 2 Files
• Prepared excel sheet for online detailing
• Made Hit 1 AW19 ppt for Elle Studio
• Updated daily tracker and Merchandise Buying reports
• Done almost the same work for brand SUGR
THANK YOU