A HANDLOOM GIANT

By, Fehmida Baba Srishti Vasdev

The Visionary
You dont just exist- you have to be involved and you have to live a life where YOU are making things better.

-John L. Bissell Founder

In addition to making profits, our aims are constant development of new hand-woven products, a fair, equitable and helpful relationship with our producers, and the maintenance of quality on which our reputation rests.

Our endeavor is to provide customers with hand crafted products which help support and encourage good craftsmanship.

William Bissell MD

History
In 1958, John Bissell left New York, to work as a consultant for the Ford Foundation. Highly impressed with the Indian handloom textiles, he decided to exhibit this craft to the outside world . This led to the genesis of Fabindia in 1960, primarily as an export house, in order to provide equitable employment to traditional . In1975, the first Fabindia retail outlet was opened in Greater Kailash, New Delhi. By the early eighties,Fabindia had forayed into the production of garments made from hand-woven and hand block printed fabrics. conti

CONTD..
Fabindia started dealing in a wide range of upholstery fabrics, durries, home linens, furniture, lights and lamps, stationery, home accessories, pottery and cutlery. In 2004, their food products range and in 2006, Fabindia Sana, their authentic body care products range was launched. Recently, they have also ventured into the jewellery segment. However, the major chunk of Fabindias product range is textile-based

Philosophy
Fabindia was founded with the strong belief that there was a need for a

vehicle for marketing the vast and diverse craft traditions of India and thereby help fulfill the need to provide and sustain rural employment. They blend indigenous craft techniques with contemporary designs to bring aesthetic and affordable products to todays consumers

Their endeavor is to provide customers with hand crafted products

which help support and encourage good craftsmanship. Their products are sourced from villages all over India.

Fabindia works closely with artisans by providing various inputs

including design, quality control, access to raw materials and production coordination. The vision continues to be to maximize the hand made element in our products, whether it is hand woven textiles, hand block printing, hand embroidery or handcrafting home products.

Assortment Planning at Fabindia Stores

Each fabindia store has its own buying plan

according to inventory,past sales and budget given. Each store is given its own wallet based on the budget that is planned by marketing and finance people at the headquarters. Buying is done after each week after checking the inventory for the replenshing stock. Each garment style has a code called style no. and to replenish that style the style no. and quantity are fed into their system.

Contd..
Then the stock is replenished from the warehouse of

fabindia headquarters in Delhi to the respective stores. The warehouse at Delhi orders the quantity to its suppliers who sends them the finished goods. The fabindia warehouse has its suppliers in Delhi,Jaipur,Bikaner and Bhuj. Fabindia offers 2 types of apparel category with different price ranges. Premium apparel category-it includes silk,cotton,chanderi and party wear.it forms 20% of total buying Core apparel category-it includes printed and woven cotton.it forms 80% of total buying.

The material & machines used by Fabindia

Hydro Extractors: Direct drive, self balancing and high speed DC injected broke are suitable for the merchandise centrifuge after dying or washing. High speed, mainly ensures undersized extraction and consumes less energy. Dry-Cleaning Machines: The machines Fab India uses comprise powerful filter, with low spin extract. The machine at Fab India for dry cleaning is specifically designed in order to remove greasy and oily trace marks from woolen or quality garments.

Timeline

Founded in 1960 1975: First retail store in Delhi 1993: Second retail store in Delhi 1996: Third retail store in Bangalore 2000: Non-textile range started 2004: Organic Food introduced 2006: Personal Care products, ~60 Stores 2008: Handcrafted Jewellery 2010: 120 stores including 6 overseas 2013: 169 stores 8 overseas (3 stores in Mauritius,2 stores in Dubai and 1 store each in Italy,Nepal and Singapore)

Retail
Fabindia is in these cities: Agra, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Baroda, Bhatinda, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Calicut, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Coonoor, Dehradun, Delhi & NCR, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, Goa, Gwalior, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Jammu, Jamshedpur, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Karnal, Kochi, Kolkata, Kolhapur, Kottayam, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mangalore, Mumbai, Mysore, Nasik, Nellore, Panchkula, Patiala, Patna, Pondicherry, Pune, Raipur, Rishikesh, Secunderabad, Siliguri, Surat, Thrissur, Trichy, Trivandrum, Varanasi, Vellore & Vizag.

Fabindia strategies
Multiple procurement sources (private, NGOs, farmers groups

and individual farmers) (Networking):It has 122 products from 16 suppliers with 220 product packs
Training and financial support to suppliers Partnership with small producers No direct working with producers Partnership in Community owned companies of producers

MERCHANDISING POLICY
Exhibitions play a crucial role in promoting the new products

launched by fabindia in different seasons. They use advertising in the form of print media, mobile networking and posters and hoardings Fabindia promoted its products, mostly through posters, word of mouth and events. The youth leaders who patronized Fabindia garments were like brand ambassadors for Fabindia. The news reports also to a certain extent worked as advertisement for Fabindia. Managers regularly go for field visits to explore new possibilities. The mystery shopper technique is used to keep a watch on operations in stores. Their main motif is to promote the art of rural India in the fast moving fashion industry.

PRODUCT LINES OF FABINDIA FABINDIA

It is offering multiple product lines. They are catering to Women, Men as well as Kids segment in apparels and has products in Furniture, Organic Food, Body care, Accessories, Upholstery etc. They have 18 product lines.

PRODUCT LINES OF FABINDIA

WOMENS WEAR MENS WEAR KIDS WEAR FURNITURE BODY CARE ORGANIC FOOD UPHOLESTRY BATH LINEN HOME LINEN HOME ACCESSORIES COSTUME JEWELLERY WOMENS JUTE CHAPPALS MENS JUTE CHAPPALS KIDS JUTE CHAPPALS BAGS CUTLERY STATIONARY TABLE LINEN

Product line lengths of fabindia

Each product line has length which includes categories demarcated to suit customer needs. In women's wear the product line length includes:

Sarees Kurtas Churidars Pants Tops Tunics Kaftans

Product line depth

Each product line length has a depth which include items in different sizes and many numbers of styles. Sarees: 1)Chanderi sarees 2)Silk sarees a)printed silk sarees b)woven silk sarees 3)Kantha sarees 4)Cotton sarees a) printed cotton sarees b) woven cotton sarees

Kurtas: 1)Mini full sleeves 2)Mini half sleeves 3)Mini sleevless 4)Short full sleeves 5)Short half sleeves 6)Medium full sleeves 7)Medium half sleeves

Store- GK 1, N-Block Market

KURTAS Knee length kurta Long kurta stole DUPATTA chunni shawl churidar salwar BOTTOMS pants capri tunic

DRESSES
kaftan Jump-suit

SKIRT

SAREE

quantities

40

53

50

60

12

60

73

38

84

16

14

500

sizes

XS-XL

XS-XXL

S-L

S-L

28-36

28-36

XS-L

S/M-L/XL

XS-L

S-L

colors

15

18

11

Prize range

5993,5oo

9995,000

299699

4801,100

1,8005,000

799-1,200

899-900

1,8002,500

8001,800

5801,250

8501,300

1,1001,600

999-2800 890-22,000

Store- S 72, Green Park Market

kurtas Knee length kurta Long kurta stole dupatta chunni shawl churidars bottoms salwar pants capris tunics

dresses
kaftans Jump-suits

skirts

sarees

quantities

22 XS-XL

41 XS-XXL

40

54

20 S-L

23 S-L

11 28-36

40 XS-L

12 S/M-L/XL

2 M

12 S-L

220

sizes

colours

3 5993,000

4 9994,200

12 299699

15 4801,100

6 7,991,200

6 8991,300

4 1,8002,500

3 8001,300

3 5801,250

4 8501,300

1 1,100

5 9992,200

9 89019,000

Prize range

Marketing strategies
Home delivery

Deepavali gift packs Free samples Promotional literature (brochures, pamphlets) focus on generic promotion of organic Participation in organic/traditional food festivals/rural exhibitions/melas

Awards and Recognition

In 2004, Fabindia was featured as

part of a CNBC special TV report on India. Fabindia brand does not advertise, and largely works through word of mouth publicity. then in 2007 the craft-conscious enterprise concept of Fabindia became a Harvard Business School (HBS) case study. 2010 marked 50 years of the foundation of Fabindia, and release of the book, The Fabric of Our Lives: The Story of Fabindia, by Radhika Singh

 FabIndia was awarded Best Retail Brand, 2004 by The

Economic Times of India.

FabIndia also got Designer Promoting Indian Craft or

Technique award as Hall of Fame reward

Sources: