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Bharat To Open Sixth Fabrics Store in Gujarat, Praises Local Mills For Revolutionizing Business

May 31, 2013

MUMBAI, India — Bharat fabrics is planning its sixth store to pen in Gujarat in September.

With five stores in India and one more to come this year, Bharat Furnishings is one of the top two fabric sellers in India today, right up there with Jagdish (number one), south of New Delhi  and Floor & Furnishings a distant third but closing the sales gap fast under the watchful eye of Makul Khanderval. Bharat’s business was flat last year but is up about five percent in 2013 so far according to Sandeep Ghandi, one of the three principals.

Bharat is managed by two brothers Kunal and Sandeep Gandhi and their uncle Dilip Ghandi. They attend Heimtextil, Evteks and will go to China for the first time though they are not keen on China, except to purchase lower end ranges in up to $10 a meter with 40 percent duty. The company started in 1971 and is in its third generation in the same family. “Mumbai is tight on space with 120 million people living here. Lack of space makes it difficult to display the fabrics properly,” says Sandeep. The Mumbai store is 4,000 square feet including the basement and ground floor. “There’s just no room when you consider we have 60-70 lines on display,” Sandeep explains. Brothers Kunal and Sandeep Gandhi with uncle Dilip  (center)Brothers Kunal and Sandeep Gandhi with uncle Dilip (center)

More often now, Bharat depends on sales through catalogs supplied by major wholesalers like D’Decor.”There has been a revolution in India these past few years. The mills became their own wholesalers and the traditional wholesalers were forced to focus on other distribution businesses once they were forced to leave the  fabrics trade,” Sandeep explains. “All  of the mills do cut length business.” Everything changed when cotton became too expensive for Bharat to handle and it was also not that durable compared to polyester,” he says.

“ The top four mills here are D’Decor, Dicitex Furnishings, GM Fabrics and GM Syntex. Ajay Arora and Rajjnish Aroraa,  principals of D’Decor and Dicitex Furnishings respectively, have created a revolution in the fabrics industry in the last four years,” Sandeep says. “GM Fabrics and GM Syntex have followed in their footsteps by hiring western designers to produce their lines. Dalbir Singh has changed the entire story of GM Syntex with ‘Pure’ brand in the past three years,” he adds. “The GM Syntex catalog is excellent for Bharat.”

“Our 12 books from Bru Textiles (Belgian converter) are selling well in Mumbai,” Sandeep points out. Some of these products are three years old and are still selling well here. Everyone now imports their own designs in India. These are dropped shipped to us for immediate delivery.” Sandeep says he recently  ordered  cut length goods from Kobe (Holland)  and wide width curtaining fabrics from Evimteks (Turkey) as well as Nya Nordiska (Germany)  for his cut length business. Bharat does some business with Zimmer + Rohde but it is a small part of the overall business. “Our contract business is growing faster than residential,” Sandeep continues. We develop contract fabrics in India for 300 rupees a meter. That’s about $6.00!

While there is a burgeoning hotel business in India, the fabrics are not that well developed in relation to fire codes. Still, hospitality purchasing groups working for major chains like Marriott in India are ordering better goods for contract. 

 



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