Market may still be difficult for many companies, but like always there are exceptions that are continuing to register good growth. Doing approximately US $ 88 million turnover per year, Chennaibased buying house Fifth Avenue is expecting to double its turnover in the next one-anda-half years. It is working very systematically for this stupendous growth as it has enhanced focus last year on the US market and is now expecting about 30 per cent of total business from the same. Further, its leather division which is very small as of now is being expanded. Having current team strength of almost 80 persons, Fifth Avenue will also be expanding the same soon, especially in the merchandising and quality department. For better coordination and consolidation, the company is shifting its main operations from Chennai to Bangalore; and while Chennai office will remain as the registered office, all operations will be focused and routed through the Bangalore office as most of its sourcing is from Bangalore, Tirupur and Delhi.
Under the leadership of Promodh Sharma, Founder and Group Chairman of the company, Fifth Avenue is moving into multi directions with efforts from Vinod Sharma, CEO and Bipin Kumar, Director Marketing. Fifth Avenue has strong edge from its design studio indulging in strong product development which is being handled and guided by Promodh. “The US market seems positive and we are hopeful that we will definitely get good business from there. Our increased focus on leather garments, bags and accessories are also for the US market, similarly we are expecting good business from Europe also,” informed Vinod. As the company has a strong and traditional vendor base, presently it has no plans to add new vendors in India but is planning to increase its Bangladesh sourcing by 50 per cent which is currently at 10 per cent of its total business. This increased focus on Bangladesh will not impact sourcing from India, as Vinod says, “It is obvious to come to one’s mind that we may shift business between India and Bangladesh because of having an established base in both. But we don’t believe in doing that because the buyer who wants to source from Bangladesh is not the same who wants to buy from India as well, and it does not make sense to source a value-added product from Bangladesh that would cost twice as compared to what we would pay in India.”
Completing one-and-a-half decades of its establishment, Fifth Avenue is working with brands like Diesel, GAS, Replay, Gaudi, Kiomi, etc. It sources a complete range of men, women and kidswear.
