Starting Small Business| Indian Traditional Wears.

Indian Traditional Wears

Introduction:

Hearing of Indian traditional clothing. What comes to your mind? Long pretty, elegant dresses in artistic colors. Mostly worn by people on Family Events like wedding ceremonies.

In an area like GTA, where about 12% of the population is of Indian descent (Review, World Population, 2019) and I remember my grandparents had to visit India to buy Indian clothing for the upcoming marriage of my aunt. Setting up an Indian Traditional Wear business is an absolute selection.

The most vital secret behind clothing business is marketing. Better the marketing, the more chances of increased sales. The blog is going to concentrate over the marketing aspects of the business idea.

Product: Providing a good quality product to your customer is a key element in running a business effectively. It will not only help you boost up your sales in the present time but also an important parameter to retain your present customers for future repeated sales. An Indian Traditional Wedding outfit comes in different variations depending upon customer’s preference, taste and budget. If we specifically talk about the formation of traditional outfit then we simply call it ‘3-Piece attire’. For females it includes choli(upper wear), matching dupatta(can be defined as scarf) and long skirt. For males it includes long jacket which is typically known as ‘Sherwani’, a over-fitted trouser(termed as churidas) and a matching scarf which is optional for men’s outfit. Dealing in Indian Traditional outfits is not an easy task to do as it is connected to emotional feeling of someone’s wedding. In some cases these heavy outfits are passed on to upcoming generations but there is always need to make certain changes to these outfits which includes Fitting and synchronizing them with current trends. So, selling new outfits is not an only option but customization of already sold units can also be offered as an add on service to the customers.

Place: The place element of marketing refers to delivery of product or service to the customer. Marketers should be very careful with place element because it should be accessible to the target audience in the market. Nowadays, most of the clothing brands are moving towards online distribution in order to reduce their expenses such as rent, utility expenses and salaries to their employees. But, when it comes to traditional clothing, retail shops are always preferable because these designer clothes are customized according to one’s likes and dislikes. Moreover, the place should be where huge crowd can be expected. In, India major Metropolitan cities are hub for traditional wears, like Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur. In Canada, the perfect place for this trade could be the entire Greater Toronto Area and if stepping outside of GTA, I would say Vancouver can be a good option as well. However, it is not recommended to run selling operations online, but to maintain our position in today’s competitive world it would be necessary to run some operations online. If you have any other suggestion, please leave a reply in comment box.

Promotion: The promotion element refers to all the activities and methods used to promote the business and products. This includes techniques to promote sales, building customer relationships, advertisement. The main purpose of this marketing tool is to make potential customers aware about the existing products and services, it can be done through updating company’s blog, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms as well. Issuing reward system just like- airmiles, Tim-rewards etc., would be a good idea to retain customers for future sales. Coupons and vouchers can be offered via e-mails as a bonus to the customers who subscribe the e-mail newsletter. Moreover, promotion is all about building customer relationships with consumers to promote the business in one way or another way.

We have discussed about three marketing elements in our previous two blogs. This third and final blog will be focusing on last element of marketing mix that is Price.

Price: According to me, price is the most important element of marketing mix, as it helps customers to decide whether to buy or not. Price in Canada for Indian Traditional Outfit Starts from approximately 1200$ and these prices keep on varying according to amount of work done o those outfits. These outfits are cheaper in India in comparison to Canada because of two mains reasons. First: huge amount of transportation cost and taxes are imposed. Second: lack of competition in Canadian market. Generally, these outfits are expensive, making it difficult for the potential buyers to buy them. So, to deal with that situation financing option can be made available to the customers with zero % interest on payment plans ending within 6 months. This can be possible by issuing our own credit cards just like other major stores (Walmart, Lowes) are doing. “The moment you make a mistake in pricing, you’re eating into your reputation or your profits.”-Katherine Paine (Eric, 2019)