Contributed by Anku Sharma, Knowledge Buddy
Mr. Vijayant Chhabra had joined the Archies Limited in 1993. He has been responsible for the successful set up of strong 400 franchise network of Archies throughout India and abroad. The company entered into retail by opening company owned stores where he has played a crucial role for the growth of the format. Archies has 130 company stores as of now with a growth rate of 50 stores per year at present.
Mr. Vijayant Chhabra shares his opinion on gifts and retailing industry
Reading the gifting industry, Mr. Vijayant Chhabra describes the gifting industry as the social expression industry with a size of 300 crore. He rightly points out that the industry is its nascent stage. “In U.K., greeting card business is bigger than the cola business” points out Mr. Vijayant Chhabra. On an average a person buys 55 cards per annum. In India the gifting culture is very different. Any household item, apparel etc. are used as gift items. Highlighting the changes the industry has gone through, Mr. Vijayant Chhabra states that over the years the charm of greeting cards has faded away and has been replaced by e- cards. Tracking the changes in the e-business world Mr. Vijayant Chhabra reflects that 6-7 years ago e-cards made a lot of noise. But in the last 1-2 years customers have started moving away from them. SMS has became the new trend, but soon people realized it was very impersonal. Owing to the changes in the gifting world greeting card business has though been growing after a fall (due to the online cards) but still contributes less as compared to other gifting items.
Mr. Vijayant Chhabra revisits the Archies path to success
Retracing the Archies history, Mr. Vijayant Chhabra shares that Archies started out with 5-7 company owned stores. The stores had a never seen before assortment of greeting cards and unique gifting idea. Customers loved the idea and made it a success. It was this success that prompted Archies to take the road to franchising. Archies wanted to expand, but the capital was limited so franchising was the best option. The franchisees made the investment for shops in prime locations. Archies provided the product mix and the brand name. The initial challenges in franchising were tremendous, franchisees wanted to ride on Archies success. But as the time went by, the business model matured. More standardization came in with list of do’s and don’ts for the franchisee. Today, Archies reaches out to its customers through a network of 400 franchisees and 130 company owned stores. Archies makes sure that the customer gets the same experience irrespective of the ownership of the store.
