Crocodile begins soft launch of AIKO

The Rs 35 crore Coimbatore-based menswear company Crocodile Products, has started test marketing a new brand,AIKO, to tap the lower and mid segments of the market.

Discussing the company's plans for the launch of AIKO, Sivaraman said: "The test marketing has been carried out in Bangalore and around 8000 shirts under the AIKO brand has been sold so far." He, however, said as the plans for a full scale launch was yet to be crystallised, the volume target for AIKO was not decided.

Crocodile, at present, produces 300,000 woven garments, which includes shirts and trousers and four million knitted garments, of which 200,000 are T-shirts and the rest undergarments.

Sivaraman said AIKO would be priced in the range Peter England and John Players. Shirts would be typically priced between Rs 399 and Rs 599 and trousers would start with a price tag of Rs 699. At present, Crocodile brand shirts are priced between Rs 540 and Rs 800, trousers between Rs 780 and Rs 1200 and T-shirts between Rs 340 and Rs 700.

Targeting the summer sales, Crocodile is launching a new range of SMS (sweat management system) T-Shirts that will be priced at Rs 30 more than the existing range of products in the category. A new range of trousers with 'e-shell' inner fabrics is also planned.

Sivaraman said the e-shell inner fabric would protect the user from harmful radiation from mobile phones.

He added that this is a first of its kind in India and the products with e-shell lining would cost Rs 50 more than the regular products.

A team of brand auditors from Singapore will soon be visiting Crocodile's operations in India to do a brand assessment. Sivaraman said the team will be spending two weeks in India and have been assigned to do the audit by the brand owners in Singapore.