The women’s lifestyle D2C brand FS Life, previously known as Fable Street, forayed into offline retail with the launch of a flagship store in Mumbai in September 2023. Two more – one each in Mumbai and Pune – are to be launched in October.
In a telephonic conversation with Medianews4u.com, Adarsh Sharma, Chief Revenue Officer, FS Life, said, “If the customer is more comfortable shopping offline then you should not say that if you need our products, then online is the only way out. There are cost implications due to which we can’t expand rapidly offline. We do that in a gradual manner. Offline is definitely a strategy we are going to focus on. We have been slow in the process but we have taken time on this and built a very strong brand in the online sphere. Over the next couple of years, you will see offline expansion picking up a lot of pace and growing bigger.”
On the choice of cities for its first offline stores, Sharma explained that the brand’s audience is across India, majorly in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru as these cities house the biggest corporate houses. But when it comes to retail expansion, it is about the right real estate and locations, he noted.
“We were exploring Bengaluru and Delhi too. Then Mumbai happened and we also got an opportunity in Pune which is the fourth biggest city for us in terms of revenue. We are planning to launch stores in Delhi and Bengaluru by the end of 2023,” he said.
The brand’s revenue is equally split among the geographies, with around 30 pc each coming from the North, West, and South. The East is admittedly less because the number of corporate centres in the region are less, reasoned Sharma.
The retail stores are predominately for Fable Street products. The other brands in the portfolio will chalk their own retail strategy in the coming days, according to the spokesperson.
“In course of time, we are also planning to establish Pink Fort and March stores. I don’t want to define a timeline for this, but it can happen at the end of 2023 as well. Within the Fable Street stores, from time to time, depending on the right opportunity and timing, we will be bringing in products from other brands as well because it helps in people discovering these brands. We can say that these retail outlets will have 90 pc of Fable Street products, but will have a 10 pc share of Pink Fort and March,” Sharma said.
The Portfolio
FS Life houses three brands: Fable Street (western wear for women), Pinkfort (ethnic wear), and March (fine silver jewellery). Sharma explained the TG of each brand.
“The three categories have slightly different TGs. Age-wise, Fable Street has a dominant customer base between 28 plus to 45-plus, largely the modern working professionals in bigger cities (tier 1 and 2). When it comes to Pinkfort, the age group and the geography remain the same, the only difference is that Pinkfort is more for people who have an inclination towards western wear but also want to purchase ethnic wear. It is basically for the modern Indian women. March is targeted at a slighter younger audience. It starts from the age between 20 and 23 years and goes up to 35 to 40 years,” said Sharma.
The X Factor
In September 2023, FableStreet launched FableStreet X – a fashion sub-brand for plus-sized women.
On the launch and response, he explained, “FS Life completed seven years on September 2 and Fable Street X was launched during the same day because we wanted it to be a gift to our audience. One thing that has always worked for Fable Street as a brand and made us what we are today is our focus on Indian body shapes and sizes. We are able to do justice to all kinds of body sizes where women struggle to find the right size of apparels. Fable Street X has been a natural extension for us. We can customise clothes up to 5XL. The early responses are overwhelming, some of the customers were already using our tailored options and the good part is that they will be able to order and use the standard which allows them to get the garments easier and faster.”
For Fable Street, on an average the brand gets two garments for every order. With Pink Fort it is 1.5 to 2 garments per purchase. March, the jewellery brand, sees more of impulse purchases.
The company spends 20 to 25 pc of its revenue on marketing and advertising. With the brand’s offline expansion, this percentage is expected to come down.
Celeb Power
The brand onboarded actors Huma Qureshi, Sonakshi Sinha, and Srinidhi Shetty in 2022.
Asked about the RoI from the associations, Sharma explained, “The agreement with these celebrities ended a few months back. All three of them are big names and have personalities that resonate with the brand. The campaign was very successful. The celebrities’ personalities have added more value to the brand in terms of the image and positioning. They have their own fan following and bring an element of premiumness that gets associated with the brand. Also, the popularity of the celebrities in particular geographies, like Sreenidhi Shetty in the South and Huma and Sonakshi’s popularity in the West and North, has helped the brand. Overall, it was a successful campaign.”
The Revenue Pie
When it comes to revenue, a large chunk of it comes from Fable Street as Pink Fort and March are relatively new. The online sales are split evenly between the brand’s own D2C site and marketplaces.
“We will end up doing Rs 60 crores in FY 24. Year-on-year we end up doing anywhere between 2 to 3x, that is how we are planning to keep growing. The aim is that in the next three to five years we want to turn Pink Fort and Fable Street into Rs.1,000-crore brands. For that a lot is happening around the product front. We have already established ourselves as a strong workwear brand. We have been going on a category expansion drive over the last couple of years to offer a wide array of options in work wear,” noted Sharma.
Livin Pants, which was launched during the height of Covid, has gone on to become a number one category for FS Life. Sharma expects Fable Street X to contribute 15 to 20 pc of the overall revenue. The company is researching for product expansion in another category as well.
Offline retail is expected to be a big play, where 70 to 80 pc of the overall buying happens in the offline sphere, noted the spokesperson, without specifying a timeframe.
When asked whether the brand has any plans to enter the men’s category, Sharma said, “I believe it is important that any brand should stick to something which is its core area of expertise. Why the brand has worked till now is, like I have mentioned earlier, we understand Indian women, which allowed us to give them solutions, in terms of sizing and styling like no other brand could ever give. At this stage, we do not see the need to enter the men’s category because it will end up diluting the objective we have worked towards.”
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