Fabindia was founded with the strong belief that there was a need for a vehicle to market the

vast and diverse craft traditions of India and thereby help fulfill the need to provide and sustain rural employment.

Our endeavor is to provide customers with hand crafted products which help support and encourage good craftsmanship.

In 1958, John Bissell left New York to work as a consultant for the Ford Foundation. Highly impressed with the Indian handloom textiles, he decided to exhibit this craft to the outside world. This led to the genesis of Fabindia in 1960, primarily as an export house, in order to provide equitable employment to traditional artisans. In 1957, the first Fabindia retail outlet was opened in Greater Kailash, New Delhi. By the early eighties, Fabindia had forayed into the production of garments made from hand-woven and hand block printed fabrics.

Fabindia started dealing in a wide range of upholstery fabrics, durries, home linens, furniture, lights and lamps, home accessories, pottery and cutlery. In 2004, they introduced their food products range and in 2006, Fabindia Sana, their authentic body care products range were launched. Recently, theyve also ventured into the jewellery segment. However, the major chunk of Fabindias product range continues to revolve around textiles.

The company has continued to focus mainly on the artisans and sources its products from over 15,000 craftspeople across India. With a strong foundation, the company has been successful in increasing their presence all over India. They have also opened international stores in Italy, U.A.E., Qatar and China.

Fabindias main aim, along with making profits, is to encourage the artisans to continue working on the crafts that their families are engaged in, and to spread awareness, in the minds of the average consumer about the beauty of traditional handicrafts of India.

The gratest thing that happened to our business was the move in Europe and America a few years back to the natural look natural textures, natural fibres and away from things like polyester and nylon. John Bissell (Owner)

Although Fabindia appeals to the Indian customers need to remain rooted with the tradition and culture, it has made sure that it changes with the times. It has inculcated a large number of western fashions and garments into its range.

Product
The main advantage Fabindia has enjoyed is that its products have a distinctive and quintessential style and can easily be identified by potential customers.

Fabindia offers a variety of apparel and non-apparel products.

Apparel Products : Women: Kurtis and Kurtas Tops and Shirts Dresses, Kaftans and Jumpsuits Dupattas, Stoles and Shawls Salwars and Churidars Saris Pants and Capris Skirts Bags and Jewellery

Men: Kurtas Shirts Pants, Pyjamas and Churidars Jackets

Non-Apparel products: Furniture Home Furnishings: Bedsheets Cushion Covers Curtains Tablecloths Placemats and Napkins

Skin and Haircare Products Organic Foods Jewellery

Fabindia Dupattas

Fabindia is well known for their wide and stunning range of dupattas. Their most recent collection would be dupattas made of Chanderi and Maheshwari silk. Cheaper versions, i.e. those made out of cotton or cotton silk are also made available to the customers since theyre inexpensive and require lesser care.

Dupattas, other than the Chanderi and Maheshwari silk ones are available all round the year. They are usually hand woven, or block printed, or hand painted dupattas, since Fabindia only sells items that are made by the traditional artisans. None of their products are electronically printed.

At the Fabindia store in Pali Hill, Bandra West, Mumbai, the kinds of dupattas available were: Bagh printed - cotton, from Rajasthan Kota Printed cotton silk Ikat cotton silk Chanderi cotton silk Pure Chanderi - silk Printed Chanderi pure silk Bagh printed pure silk Maheshwari Silk 7

Printed Gajji silk Khari Printed pure silk Printed Tussar silk Kota emproidery pure silk

Price
Prices of the dupattas vary according to the material used, and the surface ornamentation done on each one.

Prices of dupattas from the current season are as follows:

1. Kota Printed Cotton Silk Rs. 990.00

2. Ikat Woven Cotton Silk Rs. 1,990.00

3. Pure Chanderi Silk Rs. 990.00

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4. Printed Chanderi Silk Rs. 1,990.00

5. Maheshwari Silk Rs. 990.00

6. Printed Gajji Silk Rs. 1,890.00

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7. Khari Printed Silk Rs. 1,990.00

8. Printed Tussar Silk Rs. 2,060.00

9. Kota Embroidered Silk Rs. 2,090.00

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Promotion

Word of Mouth

Fabindia does not follow any customer acquisition strategy. It instead focuses on customer retention. Fabindia creates its market through its existing customers which is quite evident from the fact that about 85% of its customers are repeat customers.

Fabindia relies majorly on word of mouth as a promotion strategy. One will never find fabindia advertisements on massive billboards, or on television. They depend merely on their customers to advertise for them. Fabindia believes that the quality of their product speaks fro itself. Off lately, they have started displaying small adds in newspapers, to help potential customers find the Fabindia outlet closest to them.

In Store Posters

Since the products are made by artisans, no two pieces will be identical. In store posters that educate customers about the dyes used and the problems that one could face while washing/using a product has made the inherent inconsistency of the product into an appeal factor by positioning each garment as unique

Craft Tags

Every dupatta, or any other product, has a Craft Tag attatched to it, along with the price tag. These Craft Tags give the customer a little information on the handicraft that the particular dupatta falls under. This reinforces the customers trust that the product is an authentic piece made by the traditional craftspeople. 13

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Environment Friendly

Fabindia, as a brand has banned the use of plastic bags as their contribution to save the environment. On a general basis, they use bags made out of recycled newspaper, and occasionally hold exhibitions to sell recycled shopping bags that could replace the use of a plastic bag. This factor helps attract those customers who stand strongly for environment friendly brands.

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Craft Campaigns

Along with their regular products, Fabindia occasionally holds campaigns to promote a particular handicraft. These campaigns last for around a week or two, during which there is an influx of products that belong to one particular craft. For example, the most recent such campaign was that of Maheshwari and Chanderi silks. Other campaigns of the past have included Bagh Printing, Irkal, Chikankari, Indigo, etc.

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Fabindia, for over 50 years has refined the art of sourcing from craftsmen; middlemen are a strict no-no and artisans receive a share of the profits.

To understand how FabIndia operates, one needs to understand the community-based businesses. In this model companies source products from communities that are traditionally well versed in a craft and make products using this skill. They are not formally trained, but they inherit this knowledge from their families and continue to pass it to the next generations. They usually operate in a small geography and have very limited access to the broader markets. Companies like FabIndia act as intermediary and take their products to the urban markets worldwide.

The brand was built on hand made products, which could not be changed. For a large-scale supply of products, not only you need to work with many more communities in rural areas, but also ensure a consistent quality of products. Quality assurance in hand made products is a big challenge as each item is unique and since it is not coming out of a standard machine, there is no way to embed quality in the production process.

Since, the suppliers were based across the length and breadth of the country and specialized in products from their region, one central agency may not have been enough to deal with them. At the same time FabIndia also wanted to keep its well established partnership with the craftsmen and make them own a piece of enterprise that they work for. FabIndia came out with an Innovative re-organization of company. It created 17 supplier region companies (SRC) that covered the entire country, divided by geographies. A minimum of 26% stake in SRC was reserved for artisans. FabIndia owns 49% stake and employees and investors own the rest. Twice a year the shares of these companies can be traded. Setup less than 5 years back, most of these companies are already profitable and pay dividends. A separate microfinance company was setup to provide funds to these SRCs. 17

SRCs provide artisans with inputs on designs and market trends. They help them get access to funds and management skills and ensure the quality of products supplied to FabIndia. For FabIndia the quality control and sourcing has been decentralized and localized. As SRCs supply directly to the stores, the time to market is considerably reduced.

In 2007, Bissel started setting up the SRCs for not just a better grip on the supply chain and contemporariness of products but also for artisans to have more say in the goods they produce. Ech SRC has about 20-30 clusters and every cluster comprises thousands of artisans. That makes each artisan a shareholder in their respective SRCs. And being public limited entities, these SRCs could borrow money from banks more easily against orders from privately held Fabindia.

Around the same time, Bissell created the Artisans Micro Finance Private Limited (AMFPL( fund, a fully owned subsidiary of Fabindia, which invested in the SRCs.

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Time and Action Plan for Production

Item : High Waist Trousers Style : #MX556J12 Fabric : Cotton Colour : Red/Orange Size : 10

Sl. No.

Date

Day

Action

Related Dept.

Remarks

20/01/14

friday

Received Export order from Buyer.

Commercial Dept.

23/01/14

Received. Master L/C from Buyer.

Commercial Dept.

25/01/14

Will get Proforma Invoice(P/I) from Fabric supplier and Trim supplier.

Commercial Dept.

27/01/14

Will open B/B L/C to the fabric supplier and Trim supplier.

27/01/14

Submission of proto sample to buyer

Sampling Dept.

2 Proto samples to be made by substitute fabric n access.

01/02/14

Will get sample of fabric from fabric supplier for the approval

Fabric dept.

02/02/14

Testing of fabric & trims in Testing Lab.

Testing Dept.

03/02/14

Will receive comments from buyer on proto samples

Merchandising

Considering 7 days for samples approval

04/02/14

Testing approval of fabric & trims on their quality

Testing Dept.

05/02/14

Get Sample of sewing thread n trims from supplier for approval

Trims dept.

19

05/02/14

Making of Fit sample

Sampling Dept.

2 Fit samples to be made by substitute fabric n acces.

10

06/02/14

Sending Fit sample to buyer

Merchandising

12

10/02/14

Received fabric sampling yardage from weaver

20 mts. Via courier

12/02/14

Received Fit comments from buyer

Merchandising

Considering 7 days for samples approval

13

13/02/14

Received few trim samples for sampling prog. Of Garments

Will receive trim samples via courier Size set samples to be made by substitute fabric n access. Or in case if the original fabric n access. Are available.

15

13/02/14

Making of size set sample

Sampling Dept.

16

14/02/14

Submission of size set samples to buyer

Merchandising

17

15/02/14

Friday

Bulk fabric - from Bangalore

Fabric Dept.

18

20/02/14

Bulk fabric transported from Bangalore

Commercial Dept. & Fabric Dept.

19

21/02/14

Received comments on size set samples from buyer

Merchandising

Considering 7 days for samples approval

20

22/02/14

Making of Pre production (PP) sample

Sampling Dept.

In original fabric n access.

21

23/02/14

Submission of PP sample to buyer

Merchandising

22

25/02/14

Will Inhouse bulk trims for the production

Trim Store Dept.

Will do inventary & quality checking of trims.

23

27/02/14

Will inhouse Finishing accessories for Bulk production ( carton, polybag etc.)

24

29/02/14

Received PP comments from buyer

Merchandising

Considering 7 days for samples approval

25

06/03/14

Bulk Fabric Inhouse in factory

Fabric store dept.

Will do inventary & quality checking of Fabric.

26

07/03/14

Cut, order planning for pilot production

Cutting Dept.

20

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09/03/14

Pilot production will start (100 -150 pcs.)

Production Dept.

28

10/03/14

Comments on Pilot production by factory Q/C & buying house Q/C

Q/C Dept.

29

11/03/14

Start Bulk production

Production Dept.

30

16/03/14

Sending Production samples to buyer

Production Dept.

In original fabric n access.

31

23/03/14

Received production samples comments from buyer

Merchandising

Considering 7 days for samples approval

32

08/04/14

Will contact shipping line & book vessels for the shipment

Commercial dept.

33

09/04/14

Start making Shipping Documents

Commercial Dept.

34

17/04/14

Stitching complete

Production Dept.

35

19/04/14

Finishing & Packing complete

Production Dept.

36

20/04/14

Final inspection by buyer

Buying house

37

21/04/14

Will be Ex-factory

Logistics Dept.

38

22/04/14

Will Handover the Goods to the freight forwarder

Forwarding Dept.

Bibliography

www.fabindia.com www.pinterest.com https://www.facebook.com/Fabindia/photos_stream http://nmims.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Fabindia.pdf 21

http://www.scribd.com/doc/30980394/Fabindia-Ppt http://www.scribd.com/doc/11569951/A-Marketing-Project-on-FabIndia

Store Reference
Shop No. 2&4 66, Naveroze, Nargis Dutt Road, Pali Hill, Bandra West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400052

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