Also, BeechTree is a fast fashion, high street brand making modern and trendy clothes that are pocket friendly. BeechTree has emerged as one of the leading women's wear brand in the local apparel industry since its creation in March 2010. It is the brain child of Shehryar Buksh of HKB Stores, who foresaw the need of an affordable label for the huge customer base visiting daily the parent store (HKB). Managed by Kehkashan Raza, an experienced textile professional, Beech Tree has grown tremendously over the past five years with 10 outlets in all the major cities of Pakistan.BR Research met with the lady in charge last week; following is the edited excerpt of her efforts for BeechTree.
BR Research: Tell us about BeechTree's inception?
Kehkashan Raza: BeechTree is a venture started by H Karim Buksh and a brain child of Shehryar Buksh who always wanted to venture into in-house brands especially women's wear and kids wear. I met Shehryar Buksh when I wanted to get into full time career once again after my brief teaching span. In 2009, we brainstormed and made a business plan for what the women's wear would look like. Incidentally, my past is 13 year experience in the knitwear industry and export side and he had the right retail experience of the generations' long business.
This move was very important for HKB if it wanted to make use of the footfall that comes with its retail brand. And one of the strengths and successes of BeechTree is the retail platform we had where we could experiment and launch our business. We started with two brands in 2009: BeechTree for women and PepperLand for kids. We started with just two outlets within HKB in Lahore. Our price point has been medium and the target market for BeechTree is from teens to women in their 40s. We have our in-house production which entails everything from cut to pack, while we purchase the fabric. We are investing heavily in machinery and processes to get everything vertically done.
BRR: How big is BeechTree as a brand?
KR: As of today, we have 10 outlets. The dynamics are changing and now our stores are 5000 square feet, which is huge. We are not spending that much on Marketing because of our capital intensive growth in scale. Things have changed manifolds; I see this making use of retail platform and footfall as a big source of leverage for a capital intensive high-cost business. However, it then depends on the brand itself how it works its way around to remain sustainable.
BRR: What category of clothing brand does BeechTree fall in? What's your take on Pakistan's fashion industry?
KR: Without any doubt, the fashion retail market is growing staggeringly. We are a high-street brand making trendy and chic clothes at affordable prices, which is basically prêt. We are not into Luxury Prêt. We also entered the Lawn market this year. For lawn we are following the model where we spread out our designs throughout the lawn-wearing season with limited designs and limited volumes per batch. We believe that of the designs are good and the quality is not compromised, it's better to keep coming back to the market. And this model suits our store size too. We are also into shoes, bags and accessories. We have both costume jewellery and gold-plated jewellery designed by our in-house jewellery designers.
BRR: Who do you consider your competitor?
KR: The industry and the customers have evolved incredibly overtime. Our competitors include all brands in the high-street fashion and retail category. You'd be surprised to see how so many similarities run through most of the retail fashion brands for women in terms of designs. This is primarily because of market requirement and customer demand. Also, if you look at all the Lahore-based brands for instance, the talent pool is vastly the PIFD students and the NCA students. So, the taste bands might be the same more or less.
BRR: So, is it the demand in the market that is creating all these brands, or is it the supply by the manufacturers that is creating the demand?
KR: Though it could be both ways, but I think it has more to do with the demand. Women have changed, and there has been a conversion from the Darzi-wala culture to readymade culture. And when the demand is there, the industry automatically gears up to meet the requirements. This demand is due to the awareness in women, the convenience and shortage of time. Tailors now are more expensive compared to brands like us that have very affordable price points. This is another push from the society for higher demand for ready-made high-street brands.
BRR: How is your kids wear going?
KR: it's a general perception that people would spend more on their kids. That is not the case at all. While there is a lot of impulsive buying in women clothing, the concept of becoming outdated, out of fashion, and a year old design is almost negligible in kids wear. I have realised over these last five years that parents actually look for sales and discounts on kids wear generally here in Pakistan.
Our PepperLand brand has 20 stores and all are doing well. But the business model and margins our kids wear are completely different from those of BeechTree. For comparison, we have the more or less the same price points and target markets as that of Minnie Minors, Origin Kids, Outfitter Junior, Breakout Kids etc.
BRR: What about your presence on the web?
KR: We had a very active social media presence way before we had our online shop. We launched our web store in April this year, and since it has only been active for a few months, it will take some time before its contributions are significant. It's a really good way to penetrate into the markets where we do not have our stores yet, especially the international market. For this the customer needs to be tech savvy.
It's my personal analysis that the lives of women in Pakistan are still not as busy as the West, and women here still like the traditional brick and mortar style shopping especially for clothes. Going to a mall is an experience in itself
BRR: Do you have plans to enter the international market?
KR: We have been thinking along the same lines. Shehryar Buksh is very progressive about it. In another two years or so, we are definitely going in that direction after we have consumed all the low hanging fruits. There are a couple of malls coming up in Karachi. Same is the case with Lahore and one in Rawalpindi. So all brands would be expanding in the next two years.
BRR: You have participated in fashion weeks. How has that helped BeechTree brand?
KR: For us it has really put our name out there with the other designers. It is a lot of hard work and focus initially, but it is the kind of coverage and the leverage that you get later on for months on media has a tremendous impact on your brand. The immediate benefits are the brand recognition, media hype and the confidence to stand against the giants. We have been in two fashion weeks so far, and the results have been good. It is an expensive proposition, but definitely worth it.
BRR: What are you marketing plans?
KR: We have developed a full-fledged marketing department this year. We are engaging with a PR company to get the word out there. Our team is working for promotions, reaching out through the stores, in-house promotions, activations etc. We don't have a franchisee model for our stores as such. Because we are expanding and making our own stores, whatever that we are earning goes directly back into the business. We are opening two to three big stores a year; that requires a huge amount of capital. So as long as we have growth on our radar, we cannot have huge marketing budgets.
BRR: Where do you see BeechTree in the next couple of years?
KR: Growth is our mantra. We plan to open more stores especially across the country. Our next two years are being driven by all these retail space now opening up. Shehryar Buksh has played an immense role in BeechTree's achievements and plans; it would not have been possible without his vision and the separation of ownership and control.