French luxury leather goods brand ‘Longchamp’ has plans to open six stores in India over the next 3 to 4 years, its CEO Jean Cassegrain said.
The company announced its India entry last month and launched its first store in New Delhi. DOIT Retail Brand has the master franchise rights for Longchamp in India.
Longchamp owns more than 300 exclusive stores globally and retails from another 1,500 points of sale. It is famous for its signature leather handbags, luggage, shoes, and other fashion accessories sold at global retail stores.
“We arrived late here as it took us time to find the right partner. Another reason was the difficulty in finding good store locations. It’s not easy to find the store locations in luxury because the options are very limited. In future we may look at more stores in Mumbai, Chennai or Bengaluru,” Cassegrain said.
Longchamp recorded sales of 566 million euros last year with a growth of 14 per cent. About 30 per cent of the company’s business is in France, Cassegrain said.
He said the company has kept its price points in India competitive to markets like Singapore and Dubai. “We have worked with our partner to keep the price difference with Europe as tight as possible. The prices here will be 20 per cent higher than Europe, which is reasonable considering the duties.”
