BWDisrupt inrteracted with Yashovardhan Gupta, Founder of Torero Corporation, a fashion house based in Kolkata
Torero Corporation was founded on 12.12.12 by Yashovardhan Gupta. The business idea was curated by Yashovardhan Gupta and he roped in Varun Narayan who was his batch mate from ISB Hyderabad.
Torero’s Journey from Inception Till DateTorero Corporation was founded in the year 2012 by Mr. Yashovardhan Gupta. Mr. Yashovardhan Gupta felt that the leather industry needed some massive change as it was suffering due to market congestion, slowdown in Europe and the lack of consumer propensity for the products. This is when Torero was born.
Overtime, Torero Corporation has become one of the fastest growing fashion houses in India, headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal, having licenses across powerful global brands such as CROSS, Victorio Y Lucchino (V&L), POLICE, Cosmopolitan & Torero.
The company marks its excellence in design, development and distribution of Bags, Shoes and Accessories across globe. It has associate companies that are amongst the highest quality manufacturers in the world, working exclusively with some of the biggest global luxury brands. Retails such as Harrods, John Lewis, Shoppers Stop, Takashimaya, El Corte Ingles, and many more showcase Torero’s products across 50 countries.
TORERO is among the Indian pioneers to step up the accessories game and bring renowned global brands to the Indian consumer’s palette with an aim to test out the consumer’s knack for diversity. The products are diverse in offering and cover a wide spectrum of tastes; be it rustic or classy or high street fashion.
Further to this Torero Corporation Private Limited, is also the only Indian company to have received the prestigious Red Dot Design Award 2016 in the product design category.The Red Dot design awards, held since 1955 is arguably the biggest design award in the world.
TORERO successfully launched its first multi brand outlet namely BRAND BOULEVARD in Phoenix Market City, Kurla, Mumbai on the 20th of August. It offers a wide array of global brands like CROSS, POLICE, COSMOPOLITAN, etc.
BRAND BOULEVARD is a unique step aimed at bringing the Indian consumer up to par and then some more with its huge leather accessories product pool.
Unique Key Feature/Services• They are the global licensees for some of the major global brands
• Torero Corporation is a 100% self-funded company
• It holds high employment generating capacity
• Torero Corporation proudly boasts about their HR Policies
• They are majorly in leather products and accessories
• They design, manufacture and globally distribute the leather products for the brands that they acquire
• They practice forward integration by turning B to B into B to C and also acquiring global licenses
• Torero Corporation shares its work genre with global giants like Arvind, Madura and Reliance Group
• They are proudly placing Kolkata on the global industrial map
• Torero Corporation is modelled on the Luxottica business model for eyewear brands. There is no other player doing the same for leather accessories other than Torero
• Torero Corporation domain expertise is to design award winning leather accessories. They have won the Red Dot Design Award 2 years in a row (2015, 2016) and ILM award in Germany
• Torero Corporation has more than 5000 SKU's (stock keeping units) in their kitty, they are one of the very few companies (Arvind, Madura, Reliance Brands, Future brands) who have managed this feat.
The business model of Torero Corporation aspires to combine the massive consumer appeal of international brands with the low cost manufacturing capabilities of India to offer leading quality classy products in a brand at prices consumers love.
The leather accessories market is yet to have its share of revolution and they are aiming to pull down the entry barrier for global brands to ensure fair play for global brands looking to diversify into equally diverse categories.They offer a one stop solution as they let the brands watch their brand grow while they take up the end to end process. This essentially means everything from sourcing to designing to marketing & distribution is done by Torero Corporation.
They are trying to achieve scalability by creating offerings across multiple brands and categories and establishing sales channels across the world (50+ countries) through a network of sales partners.
At the back end, scalability is achieved they are expanding capacity both in terms of labour and infrastructure available at reasonable prices in Eastern India. All their revenue streams are recurring due to the nature of the sales channels created in all the markets where both brand building & sales activities are constantly pursued.
Fashion accessories industry is one of the fastest growing especially in the bridge to luxury (affordable luxury) segment which is the space that Torero is operating in. Also the Creative design process for TORERO is based out of Italy, closely following the latest fashion and consumer trends globally and is headed by a prominent Italian Designer with decades of experience with global fashion brands.
This is paired with TORERO’s in house sampling capabilities to create thousands of designs every year from which the best & latest find their way into seasonal collections.
Competitive activity in this segment is average which in the light of segment growth rate allows all companies to grow steadily. Torero Corporation did not involve any external funding. Torero Corporation is aiming at more global brand acquisitions in the future. They are going to launch new deigns under the pre-existing brands and plan to open new EBOs as well as MBOs.
Challenges Faced, Market size & OpportunityThere are three challenges that TORERO has encountered since its inception; the availability of higher number of premium malls in India. The premium malls are lesser in number and thus the constraint of finding a ‘Grade A’ space exists.
The other problem that has existed is the lack of favourable government policies; however there are a lot of hopes tied onto the Goods & Services Tax. The third problem that was rather prevalent was the lack of access that confined the Indian consumer’s access to poorly crafted Indian products or fake European products; with the entry of some major brand players and TORERO’s initiative to bring in global brands to the consumers doorstep, this buying behaviour is seeing a drastic change.
Torero Corporation has expanded to 400 point of sales within 10 months from November 2015 and is expected to reach 500 point of sale by January 2017. They spread across 45 shoppers stop within 2 months and are now present across 60 shoppers stop.
Opportunity wise Torero Corporation has taken to a whole new level of design and packaging to generate new customer based experiences. They have given the customers a highly customized packaging of the products as well as they take initiative to personalize the buying experience by adding gifts with purchase and attractive discounts during peak seasons. On e-commerce sites they have had 1 leather belt ranked number 1 on Amazon India for 10 months in a row.
Additionally 4 of their products have consistently been among top 10. They have also come up with individual Kiosks across Shoppers Stop in India. The kiosks are well decked and it has beautiful display of furniture for the customer to have a luxury experience, thus complementing the brand.
BW Reporters
Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
