Speaker 1: William, Thank you so much for joining us on the
Speaker 1: show today. I think it's a really special occasion to
Speaker 1: be sitting down with you after all these years and
Speaker 1: get to understand the evolution of FAB India, especially in
Speaker 1: the post COVID era. So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time out.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to.
Speaker 1: So Fab India. William has always been a brand that's
Speaker 1: been associated with purpose, with of course, empowering rural artisans,
Speaker 1: with sustainability. How have you managed to ensure that the
Speaker 1: brand maintains its purpose but also aligned to the goals
Speaker 1: of profitability and scaling the business.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's a tough first question. So you know, if
Speaker 2: you look at our journey over sixty five years, that's
Speaker 2: how old we are, and you look at the journey
Speaker 2: of the Indian consumer in the last sixty five years, it's
Speaker 2: been a very parallel track. I mean, we started as
Speaker 2: an export business at a time when India needed the
Speaker 2: foreign exchange and we were an exporter basically providing access
Speaker 2: to artisanal products in international markets. And that was the
Speaker 2: first phase of our growth. And then I sensed that
Speaker 2: there was a growing middle class. This is after the
Speaker 2: reforms of nineteen ninety one, when the economy began to
Speaker 2: open up and there was a resurgence in growth in
Speaker 2: a middle class, and I felt that they wanted an identity.
Speaker 2: So we then pivoted to becoming a retail retailer. And
Speaker 2: they were not many retailers in those days. I mean
Speaker 2: ninety percent or more of Indian goods were unbranded. You know,
Speaker 2: the more elite families, the more affluent families went to tailors.
Speaker 2: Other people just bought unbranded goods at stores. And we
Speaker 2: were the first people, among the first to come up
Speaker 2: with the idea that you could actually go from unbranded
Speaker 2: to branded. That was our retail journey and that journey
Speaker 2: continued for a good fifteen to twenty years. And then
Speaker 2: I felt the need that we really needed to become
Speaker 2: more a lifestyle brand for because India had now emerged
Speaker 2: and was taking its place on the world stage. So
Speaker 2: that was the parallel track. And there was a self
Speaker 2: assurance in people, a security about look we have, you know,
Speaker 2: there was this whole sense that, you know, India is
Speaker 2: an ancient civilization coming of age in the modern age.
Speaker 2: And so we thought that it would be good to
Speaker 2: pivot again from being a retailer to becoming a lifestyle concept.
Speaker 2: And lifestyle is interesting because then because of that, we
Speaker 2: added things like furniture, We added things like organic foods,
Speaker 2: We added all kinds of products, which completed a kind
Speaker 2: of three sixty degree lifestyle offering. So you could, you know,
Speaker 2: wear Fab India, sit on a fab Inda so far
Speaker 2: like you're sitting on have tables, have your wallet from
Speaker 2: fab India, have your giftware from fab India. You know,
Speaker 2: you could express yourself in many different ways years and
Speaker 2: we found that journey really worked for us as a
Speaker 2: lifestyle brand. We made that pivot and now we are
Speaker 2: making really we're in the process of making another pivot,
Speaker 2: and we're just beginning that process. And I think that
Speaker 2: journey is going to be an interesting journey for us.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm really excited to learn more about.
Speaker 1: Because you're in COVID. You know, most businesses, including yours,
Speaker 1: went through a lot of churn and redirection. How have
Speaker 1: you emerged with a new strategy given the current consumer landscape,
Speaker 1: how perhaps behaviors have shifted in the last few years,
Speaker 1: and what's exciting today.
Speaker 2: So that's a very very profound question because what happened.
Speaker 2: COVID showed us that you should not be leveraged. So
Speaker 2: some of our retailers who were you know, in some
Speaker 2: ways competitors of ours and all where you had leverage.
Speaker 2: COVID was you know, a very difficult time for any
Speaker 2: business with leverage because basically you were exposed. And this
Speaker 2: was really a black Swan event that hit the economy
Speaker 2: and it hit retail very hard. So we were very
Speaker 2: fortunate to emerge from COVID. Like every company, we had
Speaker 2: a lot of, you know, difficult issues to confront post COVID.
Speaker 2: We had a lot of extra inventory and all, but
Speaker 2: we also saw an opportunity because you're absolutely right, the
Speaker 2: consumer preferences in that period had shifted. And one thing
Speaker 2: that exploded post COVID, which is born out in the statistics,
Speaker 2: is digital commace exploded. That is what has led to
Speaker 2: the rise of the rapid rise of quick commerce players
Speaker 2: like Blinket and instam Art. And because consumers became very,
Speaker 2: very comfortable with ordering from home because COVID taught them that.
Speaker 2: In a way, I think it took a five to
Speaker 2: seven year period and compressed it into one year, and
Speaker 2: so consumer behavior changed. So what do we do. We
Speaker 2: realized we needed to have a two prong strategy. One is,
Speaker 2: we needed to build a moat around our physical retail business,
Speaker 2: which was at that point ninety five percent of our sales.
Speaker 2: Today it is eighty percent of our sales. And that
Speaker 2: involved changing our physical retail business to taking it from
Speaker 2: a seller of just goods to adding whole lots of
Speaker 2: services that you can't get online. For example, we did
Speaker 2: a lot of interesting things with bespoke, with interior design studios,
Speaker 2: with getting customers to come in. We have a lot
Speaker 2: of gifting services, so we added a whole layer of
Speaker 2: services and we noticed that that helped bring people back
Speaker 2: into physical stores. We added in some stores, cafes. You know,
Speaker 2: we really made it about our community spaces. You're not
Speaker 2: going to drive in a big city like Bangalore. You're
Speaker 2: not going to spend two hours in a car to
Speaker 2: go to a store. But if you live in a
Speaker 2: neighborhood and it's Sunday morning, you might go to a store.
Speaker 2: And you know, many people can do different things. So
Speaker 2: we wanted to bring the joy back to physical retail
Speaker 2: because otherwise you can't. Physical retail would not have survived
Speaker 2: the e commerce onslaught because it's too comfortable. You can
Speaker 2: be sitting at home in your pajamas, order whatever you
Speaker 2: want and most of it will be delivered either the
Speaker 2: same day or the next day, or in some cases
Speaker 2: if you go to quick commerce, within fifteen minutes. So
Speaker 2: we needed to pivot in such a way that we
Speaker 2: need to say that how are you going to make
Speaker 2: physical retail enjoyable a community, a family experience, a community
Speaker 2: experience and all that. And I must say that that
Speaker 2: has shown very strong. I mean, it's a good place
Speaker 2: for us to be. But we're also focusing very much
Speaker 2: on quick commerce. The interesting thing is we sell more
Speaker 2: sc use of certain types like white Cota pajamas on
Speaker 2: quick commerce than we do in our regular stores. So
Speaker 2: what's been exciting for us is that quick commerce, to me,
Speaker 2: represents a whole new area of business that didn't exist
Speaker 2: before hour. So people know no quick commerce about buying
Speaker 2: butter and biscuits, and what are you going to be
Speaker 2: selling put tabajamas on quick commerce? I said, it doesn't
Speaker 2: hurt us to try it. So the trick about quick
Speaker 2: commerce you have to have a lot of ready inventory,
Speaker 2: which is why if you're making butter, you have it
Speaker 2: or soap. But in our case, we also had a
Speaker 2: lot of ready inventory, so we were able to quickly
Speaker 2: offer that to quick commerce players. They could put it
Speaker 2: in there five thousand plus dark warehouses and get it
Speaker 2: out to customers. But it's not a game for the
Speaker 2: faint hearted because you need deep inventory and then if
Speaker 2: something doesn't do well, it comes back and then you
Speaker 2: need to have the ability to absorb it.
Speaker 1: And exactly that's in fact, that's just what I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you because both in terms of what
Speaker 1: you're describing in quick commerce as well as going back
Speaker 1: to you know, restocking the stores, even though it's now
Speaker 1: more service led, but there is still once again that
Speaker 1: risk on inventory and and you know, building operational capital
Speaker 1: to in fact sustain this. So do you see a
Speaker 1: risk there or you feel that you've had the learnings
Speaker 1: and this time it's well mitigated.
Speaker 2: No, there's a huge risk because if you see, digital
Speaker 2: businesses have actually split into four areas. So when someone
Speaker 2: says what's your e commace strategy, I said, it's there
Speaker 2: are four types of digital businesses. You have our own
Speaker 2: web and app where we get over one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: unique visitors a day, we have marketplaces like Mintra, like Amazon.
Speaker 2: They're the marketplaces, which is a whole different kind of
Speaker 2: business because in the marketplaces you are competing, in our
Speaker 2: case with hundreds of others where the price to French
Speaker 2: you'll give me twenty five rupees up and down. Then
Speaker 2: you have quick commerce where you have to have very
Speaker 2: deep pockets and the ability to absorb huge returns. And
Speaker 2: then you have social commerce, which is all Instagram led.
Speaker 2: So the digital space has divided into four really distinct markets,
Speaker 2: so you need a separate strategy for each one.
Speaker 1: So then if we were to look at consolidated margins,
Speaker 1: would you say that? And I think there's still always
Speaker 1: a little bit of a tug with margins and having
Speaker 1: them expand correct if I'm wrong. Is that due to
Speaker 1: a large part because of again still building up the
Speaker 1: physical retail part, or is it because of a structural
Speaker 1: shift and demand that you're seeing altogether.
Speaker 2: So if you see physical retail, the rule in the
Speaker 2: game is intake margin versus lifetime out right, So let's see,
Speaker 2: if your intake margin is sixty percent and your lifetime
Speaker 2: margin is fifty six percent, then it's four hundred basis
Speaker 2: points to exit them. So you bring it in and
Speaker 2: by the time it's exited at a discount, you've lost four
Speaker 2: hundred basis points. Now, if you're losing anywhere up to
Speaker 2: five hundred basis points in physical retail, you're doing a
Speaker 2: great job in the product life cycle. Quick commerce is
Speaker 2: very different because in quick commerce you have to have
Speaker 2: the ability to forecast correctly. So if they sell Rockies,
Speaker 2: they sell a lot of Rockies, then the day after
Speaker 2: Rocky they're selling zero Rockies. Then those Rockies have to
Speaker 2: come back to you and you need to know what
Speaker 2: to do with them. Similarly, you know if you take
Speaker 2: anything in quick commerce, the game is a very fast game.
Speaker 2: It's fast and sharp and there's no room for error.
Speaker 2: So if six thousand quotas are ordered and four thousand
Speaker 2: come back, you have the ability to absorb that four thousand. So,
Speaker 2: in a way, you can only make money in quick
Speaker 2: commerce if you have figured out the algorithm how it
Speaker 2: works in both directions, and for that you really need
Speaker 2: to have a team that is totally focused on it,
Speaker 2: because if the returns exceed a certain percentage, your margin
Speaker 2: is gone and you move into losses very quickly.
Speaker 1: Got it the physical store to e commerce kind of contribution.
Speaker 1: How do you see that changing over time? And you're
Speaker 1: currently also expanding and opening news stores, so tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that as well. How do you
Speaker 1: see that intensity deepening across maybe tier two, tier three,
Speaker 1: or which city is as well as how the overall
Speaker 1: contribution to revenue is likely to play out.
Speaker 2: So essentially, every business is going to have to become
Speaker 2: a tech company. We are going to have to become
Speaker 2: a tech company simply because the data rivers that are
Speaker 2: reaching us are shifting all the time, and we are
Speaker 2: going to be competing with people who are using AI
Speaker 2: and a gentic AI to figure out micro shifts and
Speaker 2: consumer demand, and they're going to do it much faster
Speaker 2: than retailers who don't use the technology. So the next
Speaker 2: challenge for us is to become an AI company, an
Speaker 2: AI first company. So we have a project called the
Speaker 2: Self Driving Enterprise in which we have made a plan
Speaker 2: within three years to be completely all systems and all
Speaker 2: data responses to data have to be filtered through our
Speaker 2: AI platform, and without which decision making what I would
Speaker 2: call human decision making is too slow to be able
Speaker 2: to allow us to compete in situation like that. So
Speaker 2: we have to move completely out of human decision making,
Speaker 2: remove the humans from the process, and put in the AI.
Speaker 2: If you don't do that, you can have an excellent
Speaker 2: search engine optimization, which we have today, but people won't
Speaker 2: use search engine optimization. And if they're not using search
Speaker 2: engine optimization, all that money and effort you spent on
Speaker 2: a SEO is a waste. And if they're using AI
Speaker 2: engines to help make choices for them, then that's different
Speaker 2: because in a search engine optimization you made the choice.
Speaker 2: In a generic system, the system is made. The AI
Speaker 2: is making the choice for you. It goes to where
Speaker 2: to eat, where to stay, what to where, how to shop.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is profound what's happening. And I just
Speaker 2: hope that we are agile enough to be able to
Speaker 2: make that trying to change.
Speaker 1: So do you think today it's more relevant that you're
Speaker 1: accessible to the consumer or is it equally or more
Speaker 1: relevant to be actually culturally relevant for the consumer in
Speaker 1: the terms of is constant innovation the priority or is
Speaker 1: technology the priority?
Speaker 2: Wow, innovation is there to excite the consumer. You need technology,
Speaker 2: just like it's like saying every office building needs electricity.
Speaker 2: It's a completely non negotiable. It means that you're operating
Speaker 2: a building on kerosene in candle lights, and your competitors
Speaker 2: operating using in operating electricity. Because what is happening in
Speaker 2: terms of the AI transformation is ai is ability to
Speaker 2: crunch data and come up with trends that humans cannot see.
Speaker 2: Is that a speed that is unmatched in history. So
Speaker 2: we can break groups of consumers into tiny groups and
Speaker 2: monitor their trends by the way they drop data, and
Speaker 2: figure out a strategy for them, all of which would
Speaker 2: be very difficult for human beings to do, very easy
Speaker 2: for AI to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that sounds like a really interesting time.
Speaker 1: Has this been an experience or a journey for you
Speaker 1: as well as someone who's been building this company in
Speaker 1: this brand for decades now, to see you know the
Speaker 1: kind of transformation that can happen through AI.
Speaker 2: Well, I remember someone once said to me, they said
Speaker 2: be flexible, And I think those two words are really
Speaker 2: important because the second you get set in your ways,
Speaker 2: you're over and AI is gonna you know, if you
Speaker 2: if we don't build our business around AI, they might
Speaker 2: not be a business in the future. And I know
Speaker 2: that sounds very dramatic, But that's the change, the speed
Speaker 2: of change that we're seeing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you had the sale of Organic India to the
Speaker 1: Tatas in twenty twenty four. Yes, and you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to understand from you your experience of engaging with
Speaker 1: some of these investors in terms of understanding again the
Speaker 1: fact that your core of your business has always been
Speaker 1: linked to purpose as well. So as you scale and
Speaker 1: ask questions around profitability and scale come up, do you
Speaker 1: see pressure from investors in terms of finding the right balance,
Speaker 1: maybe compromising on some things in order to reach those milestones,
Speaker 1: or do you find a healthy balance?
Speaker 2: See, it is a balance, and you've really struck the
Speaker 2: right word, because you have to balance growth in sales
Speaker 2: and profitability with the purpose and it involves always looking
Speaker 2: at the trade offs one versus the other. So we
Speaker 2: do certain things that I think would be very good
Speaker 2: for our sales and profitability that maybe are not key
Speaker 2: to our social mission, and then we do things that
Speaker 2: are key to our social mission, and you need to
Speaker 2: maintain the balance between the two.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, And at that time, of course you
Speaker 1: had that deal go through. The IPO plans were shelved
Speaker 1: at that time. Was it a decision based on timing,
Speaker 1: valuations or other factors.
Speaker 2: So I think that we came out of COVID like
Speaker 2: most businesses, like COVID was a period where you really
Speaker 2: a business got damaged. I mean it was. It was
Speaker 2: just the nature of what happened. And then coming out
Speaker 2: of COVID and bringing the workforce back and was harder
Speaker 2: than I thought it would be, and doing an IP
Speaker 2: at the same time was not possible to we realize
Speaker 2: it was too much for the organization to take on
Speaker 2: and we had a large amount of debt on our books,
Speaker 2: which we had taken on during COVID, because that is
Speaker 2: when you know you live you walk your talk, basically,
Speaker 2: because we kept saying we're a social vision driven company,
Speaker 2: a mission driven company, we have a strong social objective. Well,
Speaker 2: during COVID, what happened is that a lot of our
Speaker 2: artisan base was crumbling and really so we had to
Speaker 2: keep ordering some amount. So we ended up going from
Speaker 2: zero debt to about seven the course of debt, and
Speaker 2: in order to retire the debt, we sol long Anakinda.
Speaker 1: Got it And would you at any stage reconsider going
Speaker 1: down that path?
Speaker 2: I do feel that personally not not for the next
Speaker 2: few years, because I think that we have enough to
Speaker 2: keep ourselves occupied with. But I do feel that the
Speaker 2: next revolution, any FMCG company that doesn't become a company
Speaker 2: with a purpose like wellness is going to be just
Speaker 2: a commodity. And wellness is where the future lies. I mean,
Speaker 2: people really want to look good, they want to be healthy,
Speaker 2: and they're putting a huge premium on their health. And
Speaker 2: I think that if one creates put wellness at the
Speaker 2: core of what you're doing, the whole FMCG sector will
Speaker 2: be reinvented.
Speaker 1: Okay, going forward, would the strategy then be to gradually
Speaker 1: consolidate everything under that wellness player around that wellness play
Speaker 1: or is it still more about further diversification. Which way
Speaker 1: do you see things going or which way are you
Speaker 1: choosing to approach it?
Speaker 2: So, I mean the conversation on where Organic India was
Speaker 2: built as India's first wellness company, and you know, because
Speaker 2: of circumstances, we have to sell it. I do feel
Speaker 2: that the wellness space is huge, and it's part of
Speaker 2: the concept of having a lifestyle brand, because a lifestyle
Speaker 2: brand is almost like an ideology. I mean, it speaks
Speaker 2: to you as a person, what you believe in, the
Speaker 2: way you want to live your life, your values, So
Speaker 2: we want to be in alignment with those and we
Speaker 2: want to say that look, if you have these values,
Speaker 2: if this is what you believe in, this is the
Speaker 2: way you want to live your life, then where the
Speaker 2: brand for you got it? So?
Speaker 1: How much of revenue is still from apparel?
Speaker 2: So apparel currently is interesting. It counts for about seventy
Speaker 2: percent of our revenue. That's across both digital and physic.
Speaker 2: But within that, the interesting thing is that ethnic is
Speaker 2: growing very slowly, whereas Western ware is growing very fast
Speaker 2: Fusion in Western ware. So in apparel we really have
Speaker 2: the traditional ethnic, we have Fusion, which is a blend
Speaker 2: of East and Western. We have Western where and the
Speaker 2: fastest growing segment is really westernware.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's super interesting. And is that something that you
Speaker 1: found challenging here at Fabindia or you found it exciting
Speaker 1: in terms of coming up with a new line products innovation.
Speaker 2: Well, it was both challenging and exciting. Challenging because we
Speaker 2: did not want to be You don't want to be
Speaker 2: a tzara this is already done. You don't want to
Speaker 2: be a unique cloth that's already done, and you want
Speaker 2: to be distinctive. If we are offering Western ware, what
Speaker 2: can we offer that is different enough and exciting enough
Speaker 2: for a consumer not trying to be some other brand?
Speaker 2: Because they are very well established westernware brand, so why
Speaker 2: should we try to be like them? So that took
Speaker 2: us a few years to figure out our language in
Speaker 2: Western ware. And what I'm really excited about the fact
Speaker 2: that we have a language in westing with and that's
Speaker 2: that language is unique and customers are beginning to recognize
Speaker 2: it as our language.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you say there's still scope for the
Speaker 1: wellness market, how would you articulate, you know, how you're
Speaker 1: going to be approaching that in terms of creating something
Speaker 1: that could go towards IPA. Would it be a combination
Speaker 1: of the offering, would it be a fresh product?
Speaker 2: Tell me, well, if someone once said to me, everybody's
Speaker 2: going to be forty or fifty one day, everybody, right,
Speaker 2: So when you become when you enter your forties, you
Speaker 2: start thinking about your lifespan. You start thinking about you know,
Speaker 2: the first aches and pain start coming into people's bodies
Speaker 2: and they start thinking, Wow, I want to be really
Speaker 2: fit and I want to be healthy and I want
Speaker 2: to be able to run upstairs, and I want to
Speaker 2: manage my BMI and I want to do all these things.
Speaker 2: And so that opens up, and is India becomes more affluent,
Speaker 2: and is India ages, which is inevitable, they will be
Speaker 2: an explosion in wellness.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, So we'll have to wait and see how
Speaker 1: that well we're all getting there transpires. Okay, fine, So
Speaker 1: something is brewing in the wellness space. And who better
Speaker 1: than William to of course be doing this, given the
Speaker 1: enormous value you created with Organic India. So we look
Speaker 1: forward to that. I also want to come back William too.
Speaker 1: You know what you spoke about with regards to going digital,
Speaker 1: and I was asking how much of the revenue makes
Speaker 1: you see changing on the back of that. Is there
Speaker 1: any insight you can give me whether it's going to
Speaker 1: take two years five years to see that substantial shift.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to take two to three years
Speaker 2: because the use of agentic search and agentic engines and
Speaker 2: all the technologies that are coming out is going to
Speaker 2: make quick commerce grow and marketplaces grow at a much
Speaker 2: faster rate. So I can see our business being fifty
Speaker 2: percent physical, even though we're growing physical and fifty percent digital.
Speaker 2: The other thing is that with the logistics revolution that's
Speaker 2: taken place, you can be living in a really small
Speaker 2: village in a really distant district of India and still
Speaker 2: get the full selection online. And that you know is
Speaker 2: going to be It'll open up every market, every product
Speaker 2: to every market, which wasn't the case earlier.
Speaker 1: That's going to be huge.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a game changer. That's why I'm
Speaker 2: confident saying that fifty to fifty is going to happen.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, and you said you're still investing in
Speaker 1: physical and is that because it's perhaps more to be
Speaker 1: present across regions, maybe more as an experience center, or
Speaker 1: because there is also growth there. It's just that the
Speaker 1: mix is changing, you know.
Speaker 2: It's it's like people still like to go to restaurants.
Speaker 2: They might not want to go to a restaurant which
Speaker 2: looks like I mean in e commerce delivery place, but
Speaker 2: they still like to go to restaurants because you want,
Speaker 2: you know, you want to socialize, you want to meet people,
Speaker 2: you want to celebrate things. For everything else, you'll order
Speaker 2: zomato at home, so tomato comes to your home. But
Speaker 2: once in a while, you want to go out and eat,
Speaker 2: so we need to be there in both places.
Speaker 1: And the overall growth, then how would you pinpoint or
Speaker 1: define the kind of growth that one could look at
Speaker 1: going forward?
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of it is going to depend
Speaker 2: on the growth in the middle class, in middle class households,
Speaker 2: in disposable income. And I think that if the economy
Speaker 2: is able to grow at you know, seventy eight, nine,
Speaker 2: ten percent, then you know, you're you're adding you know,
Speaker 2: a number several million households to the middle class every year,
Speaker 2: and then that would mean that, you know, you can
Speaker 2: have a long runway of sustainable growth. But it depends
Speaker 2: on now the growth in the economy.
Speaker 1: Is this a good time to ask you about the
Speaker 1: Iran war and the impact?
Speaker 2: You know, the Iran war is unfortunate, it's really sad,
Speaker 2: and you know, like most people here, we you know,
Speaker 2: feel awful about what is happening. But I do feel
Speaker 2: that its impact will be felt, even if it ends
Speaker 2: soon for the near future, for the next couple of months.
Speaker 2: I mean, we don't use any petrochemical products like polyester yarns.
Speaker 2: We don't use the yarn, so we're not affected that much.
Speaker 2: By any price rises that take place. We are also
Speaker 2: one hundred percent made in India and so we are
Speaker 2: in that we protected from the inflationary pressures that will
Speaker 2: come with an oil shortage. We're also protected from any
Speaker 2: foreign exchange risk because we are an exporter. We don't
Speaker 2: import at all, one percent made in India. So you know,
Speaker 2: I thank our artisans for keeping us at home and.
Speaker 1: On the export front. Have you been hit because of
Speaker 1: the Trump tantrums that keep going back and forth or
Speaker 1: have you been able to manage that.
Speaker 2: We don't have a presence in it that we are
Speaker 2: mostly in countries with the strong Indian diaspora, and our
Speaker 2: job is to promote the brand and the values of
Speaker 2: the brand, celebrating India around the world. So that's what
Speaker 2: we focused on.
Speaker 1: You also, of course implemented this new layer around community
Speaker 1: and I think they are the FAB reward points for instance.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit more about that. So we
Speaker 2: have six point three members of the FAB Family program,
Speaker 2: six point three million members, so and we you know,
Speaker 2: we really try to look after them and we try
Speaker 2: to make sure we offer them all kinds of benefits
Speaker 2: to the members, and we're doing a lot of marketing
Speaker 2: tie ups in which we get substantial discounts, so we
Speaker 2: pass on to our members, so you can if you're
Speaker 2: in the top tier, for example, you get ten percent
Speaker 2: points for your shopping. So if for every thousand rupeece
Speaker 2: you buy, you get a hundred points, and the hundred
Speaker 2: points in some cases where we have tie ups, can
Speaker 2: buy you a thousand rupeace worth. So we call it
Speaker 2: shopping for free.
Speaker 1: Okay fun, And it's taken off.
Speaker 2: Yes, because you see, if you have an interesting project
Speaker 2: or product and you want to get it to six
Speaker 2: point three million people who are of a particular kind,
Speaker 2: they happen to be our customer base and they're on
Speaker 2: our database. So we use our database to promote a
Speaker 2: product we believe in, and in return, we give our
Speaker 2: customers the benefit of whatever benefit you give us.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. You know a lot of investors such as
Speaker 1: pram G invest and so fourth level, so beIN strong
Speaker 1: backers of your story. Again, a potential exit for them
Speaker 1: in time to come would look.
Speaker 2: Like what watch the space.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to ask you in many different ways, but
Speaker 1: what I'm essentially taking away is that yes, definitely there
Speaker 1: is something something to wait for here William. You know
Speaker 1: you always did so committed to a different way of
Speaker 1: building the business true to your purpose and also building
Speaker 1: one of India's strongest brand stories. You know, also with
Speaker 1: phenomenal investors, partners that you've died up with in order
Speaker 1: to scale and grow and so forth. Has there been
Speaker 1: a point along the way where you've questioned your path?
Speaker 2: You know, I think that you know. I talk to
Speaker 2: young entrepreneurs about this all the time. I say, you know,
Speaker 2: what makes you live in the long term is maybe
Speaker 2: not something you think is a good idea in the
Speaker 2: short term. So if you want to live for the
Speaker 2: long term, you have to forsake the pleasures like a
Speaker 2: glass of booze or a cigarette in the show, which
Speaker 2: gives you short term pleasure to live for a long life.
Speaker 2: And as a business, we have to do the same thing.
Speaker 2: If we want to be around and we've been around
Speaker 2: for sixty five years, then we have to remember that
Speaker 2: we have There are a lot of things we have
Speaker 2: to give up in order to have the longevity, and
Speaker 2: that's and often those things are in opposition to each other, like,
Speaker 2: for example, sample when capital markets excessively reward you for profits,
Speaker 2: like they push your price earnings multiples hugely. Then you're like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's try some cheap tricks to bump up your you know,
Speaker 2: because the markets are giving you crazy rewards, why don't
Speaker 2: we start shipping and they give you multiples of sales
Speaker 2: and all this, and then you're under pressure to say, okay,
Speaker 2: let me bump up the sale somehow. But in the
Speaker 2: long term it'll hurt you. So I think it's really
Speaker 2: important to be clear about where you want to be
Speaker 2: in the short term of the long term.
Speaker 1: Okay, So growth number though double.
Speaker 2: Digit, Yes, this year. We completed last year with a
Speaker 2: high single digit growth. It was a challenging year for
Speaker 2: retail and we decided to consolidate rather than open new stores.
Speaker 2: So that number is a high single digit for same
Speaker 2: store sales growth, which is I believe the best in
Speaker 2: the industry. But next year, this coming year, which has
Speaker 2: just started, we are looking at a very aggressive growth
Speaker 2: plan because we see lots of opportunity.
Speaker 1: All right, William, thank you so much for sitting down
Speaker 1: with me, and thank you for giving us an insight
Speaker 1: into the world of fab India and all that's happening here.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank thank you.