Nars Aspires To Be Among India's Top 5 Beauty Brands: Biju Kassim, Shoppers Stop
After successfully introducing various international luxury beauty brands, including Bobbi Brown and SmashBox, in India, Shoppers Stop has expanded its offerings in the Indian market by launching the renowned French brand Nars Cosmetics through its subsidiary Global SSBeauty Brands. Biju Kassim, Customer Care Associate and CEO of Beauty at Shoppers Stop, spoke about how incorporating another prestigious brand into their portfolio and how the addition of Nars will contribute to Shoppers Stop's market share, in an interview with BW Businessworld.
Q: How is Shoppers Stop launching the french brand Nars in India? How does Nars perceive the Indian luxury beauty market?
A: We have been pioneers in launching several international brands in beauty and lifestyle categories in India. Global S beauty, which is actually the distribution arm of Shoppers Stop, is the partner for Nars in India and and we have tied up with Sephora and Shoppers Stop for the launch of the brand both offline and online. Nars is a very powerful brand and they see India as a very prospective market. One of the reasons why they were late in their launch in India is because they wanted to come at an appropriate time and they believe that this is the right time.
Q: Since it is a luxury brand with a niche target consumer, what is the distribution strategy planned by Nars for India?
A: Nars has a very selective distribution strategy, which means that the first year of their launch, they are going to be in about 12 to 15 outlets in multiple formats.
There will be one to two boutiques, and then there will be three to four shop-in-shop and then there will be 8 to 10 more retailers in a later stage like Tira and more.
At the moment they are exclusively on Shoppers Stop and Sephora. But we have access online in the entire India. They will focus on metro cities in the initial stage and then eventually expand depending on the consumer needs.
Q: What is the market share Nars is looking to capture in the Indian beauty market, where the consumer is waking up to luxury brands?
A: Nars wants to be among the top five make up brands to start with and eventually to be among the top three makeup brands in the country. That's the desire. When we look at this market, MAC is probably the most proliferated brand in the country today. We have launched Clarins, and then even luxury fragrance brands like Prada, Ralph Lauren, Valentino and Azzaro. We want to expand more towards makeup. After Nars, we would be launching a few more brands in the last quarter of this financial year.
Q: How much does the luxury beauty segment contribute to the online and offline sales of Shoppers Stop?
A: Luxury normally contributes to anywhere between 12 per cent to 15 per cent of online business. In some cases, it can be as high as 20 to 25 per cent, as in the lifestyle brands, as it totally depends on the brand. But luxury does contribute a big amount to our revenue.
