Scotch & Soda inks exclusive franchise Partnership with Reliance Brands

Dutch apparel brand Scotch & Soda has struck a long-term partnership with Reliance Brands to open its stores in India, which was being sold exclusively on Myntra.com.

Reliance Brands, which runs stores of 19 international brands in India, including the likes of Muji, Kenneth Cole, Steve Madden, Diesel and Brooks Brothers, will start off by opening two stores next year for the Euro 600 million brand. 

The e-commerce rights for the brand will also move to Reliance at a time when fashion retailers are looking to deploy a multi-channel strategy of having physical stores as well as a notable online presence.

Scotch & Soda was founded by Laurent Hompes in 1985 and presently runs 160 mono-brand stores globally. In 2011, US-based apparel group Kellwood Company acquired the Dutch fashion brand. Darshan Mehta, president & CEO, Reliance Brands, said, "Myntra will be one of the channels for us and we will continue to sell through them. But we are now the exclusive master franchise partner of Scotch & Soda across all channels in India."

E-commerce, both mono-brand through scotch-soda.in and multi-brand online commerce would be an important part of our growth and reach strategy. We would also push multi-brand brick and mortar stores, Mehta said. Over the past year, conglomerates like Aditya Birla group, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, which owns Reliance Brands, and Tatas have all spruced up their online commerce offerings particularly in the fashion and lifestyle category. Snagging online rights has become significant for retail groups which bring in foreign retailers to India. 

Scotch & Soda's CEO, Dirk Jan Stoppelenburg said that Reliance recognizes the brand's breakthrough style and creativity. "We are looking forward to growing our brand in collaboration with Reliance's expertise in this very important region," he said. Reliance Brands has over 200 stores across its portfolio. 

Lenskart to aggressively expand offline

Valyoo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs online eyewear retailer Lenskart, is eyeing earnings of Rs.3,000 crore in the next five years as it aggressively expands its offline presence.

Valyoo is seeking franchise Partners  to open 2,000 franchise stores in next 5 years, a top executive said. “At the end of the day, we want more and more touch points to be available,” chief executive officer and founder Peyush Bansal said. “They have great marketing and customer acquisition channel.” The firm is looking mostly at smaller cities. “Though it’s a slower market but has huge opportunity, People have high aspirations and want to buy quality products,” Bansal said.

There is significant advantage of online and offline merchandise. It is all about how a company reaches out to more and more customers, While these outlets not only help customers link themselves to the brand but they also lead to increase in buying. They also reduce the return rate as the customers have checked the product offline.”