Launched in 1980, Gini & Jony was one of the first kidswear brands that emerged in India. A household name, and a trusted, go-to brand for parents who wanted branded outfits for their kids. But over time, the brand faced challenges—rising costs, slow demand, and supply issues slowed it down.
In November 2024, a fresh start came when Suditi Industries Ltd., a well-known garment and textile manufacturer, took over Gini & Jony. Suditi now aims to bring Gini & Jony back to life by using its strong manufacturing setup, supply chain, and tech know-how.
IMAGES Business of Fashion spoke to Harsh Agarwal, CEO at Suditi Industries Ltd., to find out how the company plans to rebuild the kidswear brand and what lies in the future for the brand.
Excerpts from the chat…
Tell us about Suditi Industries, when it started and what brands do you currently have under your portfolio?
Suditi Industries started in 1993 as just a fabric mill to support our export business. In the early 2000s, we went into garment manufacturing, a forward integration for our clients who would rather buy garments than fabrics in the domestic market.
In 2009 we started our retail journey with our first brand Riot. And in 2017 we launched YouWeCan with cricketer Yuvraj Singh. In the same year, we collaborated with Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma to launch Nush. However, post-Covid, we closed all three as we had too much inventory across too many points of sales at that time. We also learned that building a brand was very different and difficult, and took a lot more time—especially with the losses we were facing.
However, working to launch new brands gave us the experience which helped us understand the real value of a brand like Gini & Jony. This time it wasn’t just about being manufacturers entering retail—we really understood the journey.
So what inspired you to take on a kidswear brand?
Two factors. First, I had a baby three years ago and I suddenly understood how much parents spend on their children. I started digging deeper and understanding the kidswear market. Second – this is when I noticed a lot of white spaces in the market. Parents were buying from international brands like Zara and H&M, and I realised that there was no national-level kidswear brand which had taken on the same recall level – except for Gini & Jony.
What are the key elements of your strategy to revive Gini & Jony and reclaim its leadership in the segment?
The revival of the brand will happen at two fronts: a) with business partners—distributors, dealers, larger format stores, or EBO partners, and b) end consumers.
I think the biggest challenge Gini & Jony has faced in terms of a revival has been that of supply. When we took over, we did the most critical revival with the first level of consumers—our business partners and we did this successfully by showing them the infrastructure, and what we supplied. The fact that we were able to convert the entire supply in 60 days, when most brands take about 4-5 months was a show of confidence for our partners. We took over on the 19th of November, and by January, we were at about 60% of supply. By the end of this month we will be at full supply.
|
Multifold Marketing Strategy: – Availability: If consumers see the product at reputable and the right destinations, that is already one layer of marketing done successfully. – Product: The right product as is expected from a leading kidswear brand, in line with International brands like Zara and H&M. – Content: This will be our biggest focus going forward as it’s the easiest way to demonstrate the brand’s attributes and values to the consumer base. – Distribution of Content: This has to be done at the right place and time – for example some of our distributers feel that movie theaters are the best place to communicate with parents. We hope to geo-tag our approximately 1000 locations and display our content in a suitable radius from these geo-tags. – Strategic Collaborations: We are getting into licensing and bringing in a lot of new intellectual properties. We hope that this will lead to the right kind of endorsements in the future. |
Are you also reimagining the product portfolio for the brand?
We are redefining the existing portfolio because the brand is 45 years old. We will first establish the DNA of the brand and then base the product portfolio on the sales channel. In India, the taste profile changes every few kilometers, so our product portfolio will reflect that, being a strategic mix of market demands, spending capacity, and the climate of the area.
Our MBO sales channels will offer more occasionwear, while EBOs will offer a mixture of simpler items – daily wear.
What will your retail strategy look like after the comeback, are there any plans to open more stores?
- Reviving Stores: We haveabout 50 EBOs. While they are doing well, they are not functioning at optimal levels. We will need to bring in capital expenditure to redo these with a more modern approach, an evolution of sorts for our EBOs if you will.
- Investing in Technology & Operations: There is much we can do here to grow significantly. I am confident that after we reach an optimum output from these 50 EBOs, we will scale very rapidly.
- Expansion: Once we start scaling and we restore the confidence of our business partners in us, we aim to grow in Tier 1. Meanwhile, Tier 2&3 will also play a key part in expansion.
- E-commerce: This will play a huge part in our revival strategy, since it will not be just a medium of sales but also a brand creation platform.
Lastly, tell us about the marketing strategy that you’re going to implement.
We aim to be available to customers in the right locations, through our own EBOs. We are also looking at a lot of mall / movie theater activations and radio or TV spots in particular areas. Going further, we will collaborate with influencers at both the regional and national levels to boost the brand by creating occasion-based looks using Gini & Jony’s collections.
This sums up what we need to do for the first year for revival – executing the basics well, and not complicating our market approach.
