Purple Creations (P) Ltd. launches Frugal at Ghatkopar & Borivali in Mumbai
28 July 2021: Frugal, the complete family shop of casual wear for men, ladies, kids and babies offering a range of products including t-shirts, bottoms, sets, nightwear, denims, novelties and more, was inaugurated on July 6, 2021 (Tuesday) at Ghatkopar. Frugal is the first retail store to feature a complete new concept of retail experience for family apparel, complete with a coffee bar.
Purple Creations (P) Ltd. was founded in 1984 in Mumbai with its production houses in Mumbai and Baramati, located 250 km from India’s financial capital. Today Purple Creations is one of the leading suppliers of readymade knitwear garments in the country. It has been supplying products under its own brands (Giraffe and Archies) along with licensed products (Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Angry Birds, etc.) all over India and producing for leading large-scale chain stores of the country, like Future Group, Aditya Birla, Landmark Group, D-Mart, etc., for their private labels requisites.
Their oldest unit based in Vikhroli (Mumbai) is equipped with the best sewing machines in the international market and has the capacity of manufacturing 0.3 million pcs p.a. Their latest and largest factory is at Baramati Hi-Tech Textile Park. The massive unit is equipped with the latest machinery from all over the world and covers an area of 1.25 lakh sq. ft. This setup has been designed under the guidance and consultation of ILFS-CDI and GERZY. Purple’s specialty is that it is one of the very few factories in the world that have a conveyer belt system of sewing (Smart MRT) and has production of 3.4 million pcs p.a.
Late Nagji Kheraj Vira, the company’s Founder and Chairman, started his dream in the year 1980, with complete passion for children’s garments. Today his sons have taken his footsteps forward with his beliefs and are ethically managing the complete domain of Purple Creations (P) Ltd. Pankaj Vira, Managing Director, joined the company in 1983 and is responsible for the creativity of their product line. His passion for technologies has helped to set up state of the art production units of the company. Deepak Vira, Managing Director, also joined the company in 1983 and takes the product line forward by implementing on sales / logistics, to ensure merchandise has renowned good sale and reaches final destination at right time.
Taking rapid steps forward …..
The second outlet of Frugal, The Lifestyle store, was inaugurated on 23rd July 20, 2021, this time in the posh western suburb of Borivali. The trend is clearly on the rise and we can look forward to more such announcements as the days pass. Viral Vira, Director, Purple Creations (P) Ltd., shares details about the factors that influenced their decision and the multiple benefits that they are passing on to the end users.
What was the decision driver that influenced your setting up a retail outlet ?
The Indian general trade market scenario of the apparel industry even before the COVID pandemic has been a difficult place to operate in. There is a lack of discipline overall doing business be it honouring order commitments or even the terms of payments which makes it hard to predict the direction of future business.
As everything came to a halt for more than a year, we saw an opportunity to rethink and restructure our business model. The answer was to focus on direct retail, try to create an organised retail revolution in the ‘unorganised retail’ scene of India, something which we had been aiming to lead to since quite a few years. That is when Frugal was conceived; a scalable organised retail business model specialising in casual wear for the whole family with one of a kind concept of year-long benefits possible because of a direct manufacturer-to-end user channel.
Why did you opt to set up the outlet at this stage and what was the reason for choosing Ghatkopar as the location for the same ?
It was a now or never moment. The lockdown restrictions had just begun to ease, the people slowly got more confident to step out and the demand for Casual wear and lounge wear started picking up pace. For the first phase we have targeted to launch at 5 prime locations in Mumbai, the first being Ghatkopar. This location has a huge potential with well informed, educated consumers with higher spending power and very few family retail shops in the locality offering trendy casual apparel.
You have incorporated the lifestyle ambience and experience at frugal by providing a coffee bar, what was the thought process behind this ?
This was a very special idea. Our goal was to create a comfortable and laid back environment for the customers who come to our shop, make it a friendly visit rather than just some other mundane store experience. It will also serve as quick refreshment for customers who usually would have spent hours of their day walking around. We have brought a complete experience with best in class machines and the best international coffee beans from Lavazza Italy to ensure that we always serve the best quality Cappuccinos every time.
What are the advantages that Frugal enjoys given your company’s experience and expertise in this field? How does this translate into benefits for the customers as well ?
We have been specialists in manufacturing knitted garments for more than 35 years. Our state-of-the-art factory with specialised machinery imported from around the world allows us to follow international standards of manufacturing quality garments which our loyal consumers over the years have sworn by. Along with the expertise in manufacturing, we have a rich and extensive experience in the general trade market for wholesale and retail business. This helped us formulate and execute the ultimate retail model of Frugal.
Because we are the manufacturer and the retailer for Frugal, we are able to eliminate the costs & margins of middlemen of the supply chain. This benefit we are directly forwarding to the end users. This way the end users get quality products at prices and deals that no MBO can provide. It’s a win-win. Another huge benefit is our partnership with Disney India, we are their licensees for the general trade market of India which allows us to sell official merchandise of global evergreen brands like Disney and Marvel to our consumers, making these brands accessible to them apart from large scale retailers.
www.purplecreations.com
