Small towns buyers driving sales of luxury brands like Gucci, Armani, Porsche Design,Tag Heuer, Burberry and Hermes

At the recent luxury shopping festival in Delhi's DLF Emporio mall, about 18% of the shoppers were from small cities around Delhi.

For the swish set from cities such as Ludhiana and Jalandhar, a quarterly trip to the mall in Delhi to buy Gucci bags, Armani suits or Porsche Design watches is becoming the norm.

The UB City in Bangalore gets buyers from the nearby mining town of Bellary. DLF consciously advertised the festival in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Lucknow, says Dinaz Madhukar, vice-president, DLF Emporio. Luxury today is not just a metro thing.

Smaller cities, flush with budding entrepreneurs, many established businessmen and now highly paid professionals, are seeing a luxury revolution. They are traveling to Delhi and Mumbai to indulge in luxury goods or buy at the many trunk shows that happen in their small cities.

"But now there is a potential market that exists in these cities for luxury brands to expand," says Sanjay Kapoor, managing director of Genesis Luxury, which represents luxury brands such as Canali, Jimmy Choo and Bottega Veneta in India. Small city buyers make up for about 15% of sales of these brands.

For luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer, 30% of its sales in India come from non-metro cities where it sells through multibrand outlets. "For us, smaller towns are growing at 30-40% while metros are clocking a growth of 25% y-o-y," says Manishi Sanwal, general manager, LVHM Watch & Jewellery India, which sells the brand.

The company has also tied up with local jewellers in smaller towns to sell their watches. Many brands have already set up shop beyond metros. Ermenegildo Zegna, Burberry and Canali are present in Hyderabad, and Hermes recently set up a store at the Ista Hotel in Pune.

Source: www.economictimes.com

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Gaurav Agarwal
Head Dealer
DENIP Consultants Pvt Ltd