LIVA Is All Set To Double Its Store To 4,000 This Year

LIVA Is All Set To Double Its Store To 4,000 This Year

LIVA CONNECT launched to bring unorganised and organised sector across industry under one roof in order to drive per capita viscose fibre consumption in apparel retail

Having caught the imagination of the designers and top retail brand, LIVA –fabric from the Aditya Birla Group, has embarked upon a larger plan to grow further in the domestic market to 4,000 stores from the prevailing 2,000 stores.

Speaking at Confluence conference, Dilip Gaur, Managing Director of Grasim Industries and Business Director pulp and fibre division, Aditya Birla Group said, “In Spring Summer 2016, LIVA has presence in over 2000 stores across 140 cities with 7 million garments tagged to the brand and we intend to double the outlets to 4000 stores in the next two season. The growth of the brand is accelerating with each season. With the launch of LIVA CONNECT, a B2B digital platform, we aim to give access to the unorganised sector and ensure that we widen and deepen the market at the same time.”

The Confluence conference saw presence of over 600 top industry players from across the country to deliberate various trends and options to grow the viscose pie in the domestic market.

“Currently, the per capita consumption of viscose fibre is 0.2 kg in India, while the globally it is 0.75 kg and the same is twice in China at 1.5 kg. Globally, man-made fibres have growing faster than cotton, with viscose based fibre growing at 27% CAGR, while normal textiles have grown at 5% CAGR over the past few years. Since the domestic market has been stagnant, we intend the portal to be an ideal platform for the trade to come on board to drive the eco-friendly vision of LIVA fabric,” Gaur said.

Birla Cellulose has also been working on speciality fibre within the viscose segment that accounted for 36% of the total portfolio in the just concluded year compared to 28% in the previous year, Gaur said referring to the innovation initiatives undertaken within the company.

The rising influence of LIVA in the organised retail sector would aid the non-branded segment with trickled down effect and create the necessary consumer pull and awareness, he said.

At the conference, Narendra Kumar, renowned fashion designer pointed out that the demand for high fashion apparel is not restricted to metro cities only but also in Tier-II and Tier-III cities like Patna and Kanpur and LIVA has the potential to satisfy this growing demand.

LIVA is focussed on women’s clothing - western, ethnic, fusion wears, leggings, palazzos, harem pants, stoles, etc. and has ambitious plans to exponentially ramp up the women’s wear sale in India based on the inherent potential it envisages. After leggings, LIVA’s has forayed into sarees based on consumer insights with more developments in more categories in the coming months.