Innovative ideas

SPARKS

On average, an office bag costs a fair bit more than a woman's handbag. So Hidesign should have been pleased that more than a third of its sales came from office bags.

But the Pondicherry-based upscale leather goods manufacturer didn't quite think that way. It wanted women's handbags to be at the forefront "" and with good reason.

Most office bags are bought by men, and they're not changed for at least a couple of years. On the other hand, women typically change their handbags every three to six months.

Which means that a brand that's known for its range of women's handbags will have top-of-mind recall and will be seen as fashionable.

Accordingly, about three years ago Hidesign's three studios "" in London, Milan and Pondicherry "" started concentrating on designs for handbags. From about six months, the gap between the launch of new collections has been shrunk to two, with plans to bring it down further to one month.

A new scheme, launched first at Hidesign Dubai and subsequently in the Bangalore store, is also helping to increase footfalls. Customers can now order custom-made bags, choosing the style, leather and colour from an album of photographs and swatches. It takes three weeks to fill an order, but women customers feel the wait's worth it.

We've all heard of car pools and Mumbaikars are even familiar with share-cabs, but share-jets? That's a new concept, at least in India. Internationally, it's fairly common for a group of businessmen to come together and jointly buy a jet that they take turns to use.

Now that facility will be available here as well. Club One Air offers a scheme where instead of buying an entire jet for a whopping Rs 18 crore, you can pay just Rs 4-5 crore and become a part-owner.

That makes you a fractional owner and entitles you to between 160 and 200 of the total 800 hours the aircraft will fly every year, for the next five years.

At the end of the five years, the fractional owner can either renew his membershio or get a percentage refund of his deposit, less depreciation.

Of course, you still have to chip in for maintenance and fuel costs, but it's still a whole lot cheaper than chartering or owning a plane outright. And it's a lot classier than queueing up in crowded airport lounges.