Raghavendra Kamath Business Standard, Mumbai, February 12, 2010 Aigner, the German luxury brand, and Genesis Luxury, the up-market retailing arm of Genesis Colors, have ended their tie-up in the country, as their plans did not go as expected, said a person close to the development. Genesis and Aigner had agreed in 2007 to import and distribute merchandise. The partnership ended last month. Genesis Luxury, which ran the Aigner stores in Mumbai and Delhi (three in all), has shut these, through mutual agreement. Aigner, part of Etienne Aigner AG, hadn’t tied up with any other company, sources said. The company did…
CONTINUE READING
Reporting by Aniruddha Basu; Editing by Ramya Venugopal Reuters, Thu Feb 11, 2010 Utilisation levels are high and given the growth in domestic consumption it would be very encouraging if the allocation under TUFS is increased as textile makers are investing more," said Sunil Khandelwal, Chief Financial Officer at Alok Industries Ltd. The textile industry had been battered by the economic slowdown for much of 2008/09 but has begun to recover in the past 2-3 quarters with major textile firms such as Alok Industries, Raymond and Century Textiles & Industries Ltd reporting higher sales and profits in Oct-Dec. But analysts…
CONTINUE READING
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle sparked off a debate on whether ecologically friendly can be mainstream, whether customers will switch from traditional to eco-friendly fashions and if so, when. There is the view that eco-friendly products are necessarily niche and cannot match up in fashionability and affordability to 'mainstream' products. I don't think it is an either/or choice between styling and eco-friendly. To sell, eco-friendly merchandise absolutely MUST be comparable to or better than eco-unfriendly merchandise, both in style and quality. Pricing is another story. The article also quotes Joslin Van Arsdale (founder of Eco Citizen, a San Francisco…
CONTINUE READING
By Vishal Krishna Businessworld, January 23, 2010 An upwardly mobile population makes Bangalore's suburb Jaya-nagar a lip-smacking catchment area for organised retailers. The significance of this 'must-have' location was not lost on Indian retail's biggies Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar, Aditya Birla Group and Spencer's Retail. By 2007, all four had already set up 5,000-6,000 sq. ft supermarkets in the area. But the stores were still to break even when they had to deal with a new contender. Dubai-based Micky Jagtiani's Landmark Group started its 70,000 sq. ft hypermarket in collaboration with Dutch retail chain Spar in the locality in 2007.…
CONTINUE READING
A recent experience with one of the quick service restaurants took me back to my post-graduate class of Consumer Service Standards. We studied five essential elements of service standards, which are: A Charter of Service, including a description of the service the retailer intends to provide and, where applicable, the benefits customers are entitled to receive; Service Pledges, focusing on such elements as openness, fairness, courtesy, professionalism, etc.; Specific Delivery Targets for key aspects such as timeliness, access and accuracy; The Delivery Costs; and Redressal Mechanisms that customers can use when they feel standards have not been met. The last,…
CONTINUE READING
