Enamor to open 10-15 exclusive stores every quarter

Enamor, a leading premium lingerie brand, owned by Modenik Lifestyle is planning to expand its offline presence and bolster its e-commerce offering in 2022.

The brand rolled out its latest campaign #FabulousEveryday in 2021 and saw a huge growth on Amazon, Myntra and across e-commerce platforms. Enamor will take forward the position of its Fabulous as I am campaign with the launch of a bold athleisure campaign, which will be announced by next month.

Speaking to afaqs!, Shekhar Tewari, chief category & operations officer, Modenik Lifestyle, says, “The first year of Covid caught us unprepared. Our manufacturing units and distribution were impacted in a big way. We had slight losses in the first half of 2020, but in H2 we grew 60-70% and made up for most of the H1 losses. Even though we suffered two waves of the pandemic, we grew close to 48-50% in FY22 over FY21 on the Enamor business. We opened warehousing in the various parts of the country to negate the impact of state-wise lockdowns. The third wave didn't impact us as we had already learnt our lessons.”

Shift towards online

With increasing digital penetration, the brand’s revenue from e-commerce sales has grown significantly in the last 2-3 years. “E-commerce has grown very well and today it accounts for 20% of the business, but across all businesses, be it distribution business or departmental stores or EBO (Exclusive Brand Outlets) business, e-commerce is still a small part of the business. The largest part of the business is the distribution business,” Tewari states.

Speaking about how Enamor embraced e-commerce, Tewari says, “Learning the online landscape requires unlearning about physical distribution. We tried to understand the requirements of e-commerce and build the capabilities needed to succeed. We understood the various levers to grow and mapped those to our business.”

He adds, “What is important is to navigate through the online and offline mediums with an effective strategy. Even if people shop offline, the research that they do is always online. It is increasingly important to understand this. We are not looking at digital sales alone with our e-commerce presence, but for consumer discovery as well.”

Athleisure in vogue

Enamor, like many other apparel makers, has seen a huge surge in demand for the athleisure range. Sandra Daniels, vice president - marketing, Enamor points out, “Athleisure is one category that has broken the glass ceiling. We felt it would take a long time for athleisure to find acceptance with our consumers. But the pandemic changed it all. Athleisure is now more than just active wear. Athleisure is the next big thing in outerwear and every fashion brand, designer range wants to have an athleisure range.”

The Covid-19 pandemic and working from home changed the apparel market drastically. According to research firm Wazir Advisors, women's apparel contributes about 37% to the overall apparel market and is expected to grow to $39 billion by FY25 from $25 billion in FY20.

Daniels says women across the world are looking for comfort wear that is less structured. “The needs of consumers have changed. For instance, the latest is the party-holiday range; people are looking for comfort along with being stylish. Fashion and fitness have become trendy now.”

Expansion plans

Speaking on the brand’s expansion plans, Tewari says, “We have four channels of distribution and we have three broad categories – bras, panties and casual wear. We lead in bras and will continue with that further there is a large focus on casualwear.”

In terms of distribution, Enamor also has access to the Dixcy distribution network. “Departmental stores are important to us as they give us imagery but the challenge there is that they are not expanding currently. We are bullish on e-commerce. We are significantly increasing our exclusive brand stores. We plan to open 10-15 stores every quarter now,” says Tewari.