In a bid to reach out to more customers, a new showroom of Jhacraft was inaugurated at Lokhandwala Complex in Munbai on Saturday.
Managing Director (MD) of Jharcraft, Deepankar Panda said, “We did a market survey in Mumbai and found that Lokhandwala is the best suitable location for the sale of our products. A major reason being that there are a lot of people from Eastern India living there who will have interest in our products. Also, a number of television and film celebrities live there who are often interested in our products like dokra, jute and silk.”
With Jharkhand being the number one producer of Tussar silk, the demand of Jhacraft's tussar is very high in the fashion industry. Panda said, “We had taken views from a number of fashion designers and they have said that we will have a good market in Lokhandwala. Another benefit for us in having a showroom at Lokhandwala complex is that out of the 600 shops in the entire complex only one or two sell sarees. So we will have a huge market for the sarees produced by Jharcarft.”
Initially, Jharcraft had a showroom in Juhu in the premises of Bharat Petroleum petrol pump. However, as the showroom was running in tremendous loss, the Jharcraft administration decided to shut down the showroom and start one at a place having better market opportunities. The showroom at the petrol pump was opened as a part of a MoU between Jharcarft and Bharat Petroleum under which Bharat Petroleum got a franchise of Jharcraft at all its petrol pump premises.
As a part of revamping its marketing strategy, Jharcraft administration has conducted market surveys at all those cities where they have an emporium. Jharcraft, at present, has three emporiums in Kolkata, two in Delhi, one in Bangalore, three in Ranchi and one in Dhanbad along with a franchise in Jamshedpur.
Panda said that the three stores in Kolkata are all under Bharat Petroleum and are running in losses. “We are taking over the store at Camac Street and it will be renewed and functional in the third week of this month. We are going to wait for another two months for the other stores and if they are unable to pick up on sales we will take a stern decision regarding them too,” he said.
Meanwhile, the store in Dhanbad is also being shifted from its original location as it is not able to earn the expected profit. Jharcraft is also coming up with a new franchise store in Ramgarh by September.
The MD informed that a number of steps are being taken to improve the sales of Jharcraft products, right from introducing new innovations to changing the marketing strategy.
“We have diversified our products. Earlier, the tussar saree just used to have a set type of designs printed on them but this is for the first time that we are planning to change the designs,” he said.
Panda informed that Jharcraft has sent running material of silk sarees to various places like Bangalore, Benaras, Kolkata, Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi and other places to get the local design printed on them.
“The silk will be ours but the prints will be from across the country to cater to the customers from each corner,” he said.
Apart from this, two expos of Jharcraft will be organized in Ranchi in the next two months, one at Union CLub and another at Hotel Radisson Blu and one expo will be organised in Kolkata from August 29 to September 4. An exhibition cum sale will also be organized in the third week of Septmber in Dilli Haat, to capture the market for Durga Puja.