Madura Fashion & Lifestyle has launched a new digitally integrated store under its flagship formal wear brand – Van Heusen. The store named Van Heusen Style Studio will offer a wide range of collection. The retailer has partnered with Fitch Retail in Singapore to draw up the concept, with virtual fitting rooms sourced from Experiential Design Lab. The store has been built at twice the cost of a regular Van Heusen store and launch of five more such stores in Delhi and Mumbai are in the pipeline.
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Vinay Bhoptakar, Chief Operating Officer, Van Heusen said, “Changing customer expectations coupled with technology are influencing consumer choices far more today.”
This is the first attempt of the decades old retailer, using the virtual space for selling. The brand morphs into a more tech-savvy brand, at a time when shoppers are switching to shopping on the Internet. With sales staff equipped with tablets and virtual fitting rooms, the store is the company’s first attempt to allow shoppers to use touch-enabled screens to shop and pay for garments. The store also allows the shoppers to order unavailable inventory to their homes by linking the company’s in-house web-portal Trendin.com to the store.
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Bopatkar, however, feels such evolving retail stores are not a reaction to e-commerce but a response to the changing consumer behaviour. Taking cues from a surge of sale fashion goods on the Internet, most large traditional retailers in India are making efforts to venture into online retail and they are trying to make shopping a pleasurable experience.
In the month of October this year, the group launched its own fashion marketplace – Abof.com – privately held by the Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. In 2013, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle launched Trendin.com – an in-house online portal – retailing its brands Allen Solly, Peter England, Louis Philippe among others.
