Ugly beauty comes to India

BRANDS: Having won over 70 countries with its comfortable footwear products, US brand Crocs sets its eyes upon India

When it first hit the market in the US in 2002, it was termed as an ugly shoe but soon, with some help from word of mouth publicity, wearing a pair of Crocs was considered a fashion statement.

Ugly became beautiful. Even the most fashionable started embracing Crocs in the many hues that they are available in and the rest, as they say, is history. And these "ugly beauties" have now been launched in India.

Asked how the company "" which now has a cult following in the West "" hopes to seduce Indian fashionistas, John P McCarvel, chief operating officer, Crocs Inc, says, "There are feet in India and people like comfortable products. Worldwide, people have embraced Crocs for comfort."

In the 70 countries that the brand is present in, the company has created its own segment, falling somewhere between fashionable wear and casual/sporty footwear.

And they are hoping that in India too they will manage to get more than a toehold in the footwear market which is presently estimated to be over Rs 100,000 million and is growing at the rate of about 10-11 per cent per annum. A majority of sales, though, still happen in the unorganised, non-branded segment.

Such has been the company's success in overseas markets that 30 per cent of the company's revenue came from these markets when they had estimated it to be about 10 per cent.

But as far as India is concerned, McCarvel is looking at a less than 1 per cent growth for 2007-2008. Says McCarvel, "We go into every market conservatively. Every market starts slowly. The gestation period in a market is about six months."

The astounding success of Crocs has meant that many copycats have flooded some markets. But the company isn't too worried, for even if someone can copy the design, the material that the shoes are made from remains unique.

Croslite is their proprietary closed-cell-resin which ensures that the shoes are soft, comfortable, odour-resistant and have a better grip. And that grip has shown wonders for the company's bottomline, making it part of the top 10 shoes companies in the US.

Its IPO last year in the US was the richest in the footwear history of that country and the company now has a market cap of more than $1 billion. Being ugly then isn't such a bad thing.