News Flash from Hidesign
4 July 11
It's 12.30 pm. The rendezvous has been fixed: a small café, a floor above the Hidesign store in Ambience Mall in New Delhi — we can't be seen. Dilip Kapur and I meet and exchange passwords, read pleasantries. Dressed casually in a linen shirt and loose jeans, the only thing that are a secret-mission giveaway are his sunglasses. True to his brand, the man carries a Hidesign casual leather bag.
This is Hidesign's newest outlet and Kapur is keen to find out how it is doing. He also wants to figure out if its intensive six-month training programme for the shop floor assistants is working. "We do this regularly. Our mystery shoppers go to all our outlets to adjudge the stores on stock, store layout, assistants' knowledge levels and ability to handle a customer," he says.
Soon, we take the escalator down to the store. After five minutes of looking around, the shop assistant finally approaches us. "I like the approach. She didn't hound us immediately," he notes later.
Hidesign started with a small factory in Puducherry and is present in 12 cities through 60 outlets. Five more are in the works this year. It employs more than 1,800 people on the shop floors and has a turnover of more than Rs 100 crore. It was one of the early entrants to launch branded bags and accessories at a time when the category was dominated by the unorganised sector. Later this year, the company plans to enter a joint venture with Italy's casual leather bag major Braccalini. "Hidesign has always stuck to its core. We don't change our products or marketing strategy depending on the competition," says Kapur. "In five years we have seen a jump to 62% from 22% in sales," he says.
Store Experience
At the Ambience outlet, Kapur is out to test the retail know-how of the staff . He asks for a man-bag for daily use. The girl produces a stocky laptop bag. "Shop