Loui Vuitton In India Essay Example

Loui Vuitton: In India Essay Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton: Going Global LV the French brand, started entering global markets in 1885 with its first flagship store opened in Oxford street London. LV started with leather products then. LV concentrated then not on further expansion but on the product range. LV participated in the Universal Exhibition in Paris. In 1888 the company came up its registered trademark. In 1896 worldwide patent was created with the signature monogram canvas. After the death of Loui Vuitton in 1892 George Vuitton took over. George Vuitton initiated steps to get the company as a globally recognized corporation. He targeted the European markets by travelling in main cities and selling his products there. After creating a channel of networking in the Europe, George Vuitton shifted his direction to US. He saw huge growth prospects in US and his first step was to participate in Chicago World Fair in 1893. Later, he travelled extensively in US cities selling his product. The patenting of LV products helped in stopping counterfeiting in the global markets. George Vuitton relocated the paris flagship store from N04 Rue Neuve des Capucines to Champs Elys? ©es, in 1914 which is now known as the shoppers paradise for luxury brand stores . This store was then the biggest retail store for travel goods in the world. This was one of the pivotal turning points of making the LV brand, as travellers from US, Europe Asia started to go for it. Paris started going crazy with this store as the rich people from middle east, Rulers of the world including Kings from India became loyalists and the sales was flourishing as a premium brand. We will write a custom essay sample on Loui Vuitton: In India specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Loui Vuitton: In India specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Loui Vuitton: In India specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer All the production was done in France only for every market. No company owned stores were opened but extensive distribution was done on the best markets in Europe and US. It was soon followed to the Asian markets including Bombay. George Vuitton expires in 1936 and his son Gaston-Louis Vuitton takes charge of the company. In 1954 which marked the 100th Anniversary of LV it launched an other flagship store in Avenue Marceau which marked the centenary celebrations of the company. New models were being tried and bought into market with peculiar and luxury designs which included bags. With 100 years of experience LV had created a respect in the market for its excellent craftsmanship and innovations adding to the products. The LV enters the Asian market with the first exclusive store opened in Osaka and Tokyo in Japan in 1978. And then followed by a tore in Singapore in 1979. After having a mark in the Asian Market with the store in Japan and Singapore, it planned its strategy to further enter into the Asian Markets including China. In 1983 the company hosted a yacht race where it was held as the Loui vuitton cup. In 1980s the company got listed in Paris and New York Stock Exchanges. In this decade LV and Moet hennesy formed the luxury conglomerate. By the end of 1980s LV had 130 stores through out the globe and the profit of the company was rising with an average of 40% growth consistently. The product line started including all leather goods from Trunks to small wallets. Monogram Canvas period, big celebrations were hosted in 7 big cities of the world. Its associating with the art even added more loyalists to the brand. Currently LV has 1 500 flagship stores globally with its own e-commerce platform of sale adding to the network. It is the worlds biggest luxury brand and a multi national corporation. The production houses have expanded from France to US, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. But leather goods production houses are only in France and Italy. Aisha Walker who Joins as the artistic director in 1997 brings first line of clothing for both men and women. What ifferentiates L V from its competitors are its product quality and prestige. LVsaw the future of luxury market around the globe. It concentrated on every part of the world. The planning strategy implemented was brilliant when it was taking on globally. The association of its product with the regional artistic and tradition raised the company to heights at a very fast paced then. LV is the first company in luxury industry to see the economic growth of emerging economies such as China and India. Loui Vuitton becomes the tagline of Social Status in the elite classes of the society. Today in China Loui Vuitton is the number one luxury brand. There is no change in the quality of the product irrespective of wherever it is manufactured. Quality benchmarking lays the foundation of LV. On each market, LV takes into account the cultural background and designs the products for the particular region with an influential value of the culture adding to LV. For example, in Japan constant innovation and the involvement of art and culture promotes the product. The price of an LV product remains equal with only a slight variation in changes. By 2001, it enterd into every segment by Joining jewellery industry as well. Loui Vuitton is the biggest luxury brand and is well positioned now Globally. Louis Vuitton in India While casually spending his weekly off, roaming the streets of Delhi, in the busy Connaught place market, Ramnaresh Thorani, the store head of Louie Vuitton, DLF Promenade faced a predicament that he was not hoping to encounter on an off day. It all started when a street hawker who did not look like a salesman offered him a Louie Vuitton wallet for an extremely cheap price, his first thought was obviously that it might be a stolen article, but on closer inspection he could make out that it was a heap knock off which could be felt as soon as he held it in his hand. He took a breath of relief and started moving forward when the hawker again pitched in that he could offer better variants called as the first copies if he was willing to shell in an amount of around 3000-4000 which are the exact replicas of the originals. Thorani couldnt shy away from that offer and followed the hawker into the Palika Bazar where he was shown the much hyped First Copy LW range and to his much displeasure, the wallets were indeed quite similar to the real deal. It was easy for him eing the store manager, to differentiate the fake from the real, by observing the slight dullness in the stamp print or the slight irregularity in the stitching pattern, but apart from that it was very tough for a customer to differentiate the fake and the real, and when there was this cheaper alternative priced at less than 10 percent of the real deal available in the same city, the teething troubles for thorani only his product with the absolute replica of the box that the wallet that Thorani was examining in his hand. Ten minutes later, as Thorani was driving out from the inner circle of the Connaught lace area, his heart was filled with concerned thoughts about his brand in India when LVwas already looking to open more stores in India, especially in Hyderabad and Kolkata. Ever since the brand took its first order from the wife of the then Emperor of the French Napoleon in 1852, the brand has been serving the royal and elite clientele worldwide. Even after over 160 years L V still maintains it image as a powerful luxury brand in the world and for six consecutive years now since 2006 it has been named the worlds most valuable luxury brand. Throughout times LV has een flaunted by big Hollywood celebrities starting from the times of Audrey Hepburn to the more recent times of Kate Moss and Reese Witherspoon. In India, LV used to be the choice of the MaharaJs when over a century ago, they used to order trunks from the French Giant, but now with the demise of royalty in India, the target market has changed. Since, very few people in the country can be dubbed as the super rich apart from celebrities and sportsmen, LV has been eyeing the middle class of the nation as probable buyers and is hopeful that at least thirty three percent of the middle class can be the target market since young professionals and ntrepreneurs have been spending more and more ever since the mall culture evolved in the country. After opening its first store in New Delhi 10 years back in 2003, currently, LV operates 5 stores in India and paved the way for other major brands like Armani, Ferragamo and Gucci in the Indian market and has a record double-digit growth locally making a good profit. Undoubtedly the brand is a big name worldwide and the only way is up Thorani thought to himself, while waiting at the red light. He remembered the words of Yves Carcelle, Chairman CEO of LV, who recently opened the fifth LV store in Chennai nd mentioned that he is well aware that his is the most counterfeited brand in the world but still it is the most ardent when it comes to fighting counterfeiters and the law is adequate to save the interests of LV. Carcelles statement did comfort Thorani a little as he stepped on the gas with the green light but kept on thinking about similar problems that were Just recently discussed at the annual meeting where he was told about other issues being faced by the brand when it came to expansion such as non- availability of store space in hubs like Mumbai where the fashion giant Just has to be ontent with stores in hotels which offers less than 10 percent of the footfall a mall could offer. Even the stores outside the hotels in India on an average are half the average size of a store abroad, where in India the average store size is 3000 square feet as compared to the 6-1 5000 square feet abroad. The counterfeits, the store sizes, the high prices in a country where acoording to a 2010 report still 29. % of the people live below the poverty line were all problems for LV that posed as big threats to sales and with foreign investor norms for single brand retail allowing 100 percent wnership only if 30 percent of the products are sourced locally when the entire portfolio of LV comes from France, the situation only worsened for the fashion giant. parking it and gradually strolled to his house thinking about the rich past, the global and Indian presence of the brand and what might the future hold for the most valuable luxury brand in the world. The case talks about the Journey of Louis Vuitton and its success across the globe. Special emphasis on the Indian presence of the brand as when the company was doing great in its traditional markets of US,Western Europe Japan, it eyed the developing Asian markets as a potential place for investment because of the rising affluence of these markets in terms of growing middle class, developing economy, higher net disposable income of the people, the influence of the West, and India was a hot favourite country as per the expansion point of view. Thus LV entered India with complete expectations of growing in the Indian market in the year 1999. LVs association with the Indian market is from the pre independence time as many maharajas of princely states specially use to place rders to the factories of LV in Paris of leather goods for their cars and leather bags for their vacation purposes so the executives of the brand were of the opinion that this relationship could give them an edge in entering the Indian market as the potential buyers will easily accept the brand variants as they were endorsed by their state kings. Some of the major aspects of the Indian market which were to be considered by LV. India was very firm on not easing or allowing any foreign companies to invest in the country post the privatisation and liberalisation reform of 991, in which a lot of restrictions were eased however the import duties were very high. India was a country of 1 . 3billion people at the time of the entry of LV in the country. Of these 1 . 3billion population more than 70% people use to live in the villages and half of them could not read or write. Another considerable fact was that there was an official ban on leather products in India which was the forte of the brand world over. Moreover the FDI norms were also not eased as the government did not allow 100% Foreign Direct Investment in a retailing venture at that time in multi brand or single brand retailing. It also has to consider the opposition party as they were in the favour of the local retailers and manufacturers and an entrance of any foreign brand will take away the bread and butter of the local producers or manufacturers. Global marketing of LV in India Luxury brands like LV have an advantage of the steadily increasing upper class and an affluent middle class. Moreover another advantage is that more than 50% of the population is under the average age of 25 which gives the brand to educate its future customers and develop their taste for the brand. Another positive aspect for the rand is that the Indian market for luxury brands is growing at a rate of 20% annually. Size of the Indian market Considering the survey done by The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), in the year 2001-02 the number of families with an annual income more than Rs 100 million was around 20,000 and the number was expected to rise up till by 2010. According to another report by the World Wealth Report the number of millionaires in dollar was 83000 in India in the year 2005 and the same report also talked about India being the 2nd fastest to grow In terms of high net segment was the class of the new rich. These were the people who had recently got hold of a lot of cash recently and were looking for avenues to spend it. They could have turned into the loyal customers of LV. Another finding of the report was that the market value of the luxury brands in India was $4 billion by 2005 and was expected to be $40 billion by 2025 which also added to the scope for the luxury brands in the Indian market. Considering the above aspects I believe that the Indian market comprises manifold business opportunities especially in the rapidly developing segment of luxury brands. And with such a name and the value that the brand arries internationally it is all the more easy for the brand to grow in such a potential market. Louis Vuitton: Problem in Indias conservative markets Louis Vuitton is trying to market a high-end brand into a low-income nation. The luxury good marketer has been facing many practical problems in India, such as the challenges of identifying potential customers, the lack of media to build its brand and the absence of high streets to open stores. In Europe and the U. S. hese luxury goods are often sold in through by the company-owned stores itself that cluster themselves in a particular area of the city called as the luxury retail cluster. After coming in India, Louis Vuitton opened up a store each inside the two luxury hotels in New Delhi Mumbai itself. Also it has to team up with other western luxury brands so as to develop a hot spot or cluster of luxury brands so as to get in the attractive customers. Another biggest problem being fa ced in India by these luxury brands is shortage of trained manpower. Its been 4 years that Puducherry has been Louis Vuitton is first manufacturing plant in Asia, but recently the French luxury Louis Vuitton has decided to sell its Indian unit toa Chennai-based firm. The prospect of a change of anagement sparked labour was due to 200-odd Indian employees on LADPs rolls going on strike since June 13 demanding that the firm regularize their services before winding up its operations and handing over the unit to the new owners. LADP is now having its two plants?one in Kurumbapet here and the other in Perambai in Tamil Nadu?to manufacture leather components for Louis Vuitton products. The management made a formal announcement about exiting India on June 13, which triggered the labour problem. It was also declared that LADP has set up Jointly by Louis Vuitton and the Puducherry-based leather fashion brand HiDesign. HiDesign did not take a stake in LADP but Louis Vuitton took a 5% stake in HiDesign. Because of this HiDesign has become the major competitor of Louis Vuitton. LADP, which had regularized the services of its administrative staff, had not confirmed the 240 workers on its rolls in the last 4 years. According to the studies; by 2022, the Indian luxury products services sector would require close to around 1. 76 million trained people to work at all levels. There has been a rising wave of urbanization, that Indians are becoming brand conscious also are ready to invest in luxury products. But the growth of luxury companies is not being able to move beyond its niche audience. Luxury brand industry has not yet been able to establish itself beyond a small a 0-30 lakhs is getting long continuously but the reach of luxury brand is slow because the medium for following this trend is limited to a limited section. That is why except for metros like Delhi, Mumbai Bangalore, there is a risk of not attracting enough customers in other cities. Also most of the builders in the past years have shield away from the idea of setting up luxury malls, it was mainly due to risk actors involved in it i. e. catering only the niche market. Most of the builders were not able to follow the international format of luxury malls in terms of infrastructure and ambience. They were only trying to focus on competitive environment which had been the necessity with top notch restaurants, cafes luxurious guest rooms. There were no big retail spaces being available for such luxurious brands. Also because of this reason the rentals for operating these stores are very high. Because of these reasons Famous French brand Louis Vuitton that was having its seven year old store t The Oberoi in New Delhi has shifted to DLF EMPORIO MALL. Pricing of these luxurious brands was also one of the major factors that created problems for these brands to enter in India which now has become such a potential market. The prices of these luxury products contains 30-40% of import duty on them with further addition of VAT i. e. 12. 5% shoots up the prices of these branded products. That is why the brand KENZO owned in by Louis Vuitton in Joint venture which entered in as a franchisee model way only a couple of years back bid goodbye to India due to poor response of sales.