Carte Blance Greetings, a leading gifting and greetings brand in the UK, today announced that it has tied up with Archies for an exclusive distribution arrangement for its Metoyou brand of soft toys, including its best-seller Tatty teddy, a grey teddy with a blue nose.
The range of about 350 products, which include soft toys in various sizes, mugs and the like will be available at 50 company-owned stores in Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bangalore. The price will range between Rs 500 and Rs 7,000, that is about 25 per cent cheaper than what the toys cost in the UK.
“By and large, we’ve chosen large stores — 1,000 square feet and more — located in areas which have a higher SEC A+ concentration. A four-feet display space has been given now, but we will increase it to six and eight feet, going by the response to the products,” Anil Moolchandani, chairman and managing director of Archies, said.
The branded soft toys market, according to him, is worth around Rs 200 crore and is growing at 20-25 per cent. Archies did sales of Rs 117.9 crore in 2007-08, a growth of around 12 per cent over last year. Archies has a similar arrangement with Fizzy Moon of UK, besides licensing agreements with Disney and Russ berry to market its products in India. Archies also markets a number of unbranded locally produced brands through its 467 stores.
Speaking at the launch, Richard Edmondson, commercial director, Carte Blanche, geetings said,
“Metoyou is a premium brand and we chose Archies as our partner in India because it had the brand image and the supply chain to help us maintain our position.” Metoyou’s target consumer group is the age group from 14 to 24, said Edmonton, adding that he hoped to do business worth $10-12 million in five years.
Meotoyou touts itself on being the most successful non-media based character brand in the world with retail sales exceeeding $800 million in 2008. While Europe is the brand’s main market, the company has recently entered Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam in India. Interestingly, China is not much of a market for “social expression gifts” says Edmonton because, unlike India, it does not have a culture of greetings.
