Local footwear brands on a roll
The footwear market is brimming with high-quality local brands as a number of exporters entered the scene to capitalise on the growing demand from domestic consumers.
Furthermore, a number of companies opened stores in recent days in a bid to grab their own share of the country's biggest spending season—Eid.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. One such company is HAMKO Group. Largely known as a leading producer of batteries, it made its foray into the local footwear market this Ramadan, opening its first store at the capital's Farmgate on July 10 under the moniker of HAMKO Leathers Ltd.
Since then, it has opened stores at the capital's Gulistan, Shewrapara and Sadarghat areas and also in Rajshahi and Jamalpur, said Manjurul Islam, the company's general manager for marketing.
The company plans to open about 50 stores in parts of the country after Eid to grab a sizeable slice of the local market, which is flush with imports from China.
“The local market is huge and is growing tremendously. If we can offer quality products we will be able to stop the imports,” he said, adding that HAMKO is making 500 to 1,000 pairs of shoes a day for the local market only, with plans to treble the production by next year.
While the exact statistics on retail footwear sales are hard to come by, one estimate puts the annual sales figure at Tk 2,400 crore on the basis of per capita shoe consumption of nearly one pair.
Abu Taher, chairman of Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods & Footwear Exporters Association, said the local sales will total Tk 7,000 crore a year.
Meanwhile, a number of industry people say the home market, which has long been dominated by multinational Bata and local brand Apex and shunned by exporters producing high-quality wares for Western buyers is progressively becoming more attractive for footwear makers, as exports entail a lot of complexities.
Zeil's is another brand that has hit the local market in recent years. It has 15 stores in the country and plans to add another five this year, said an official of the company.
Bay Emporium, which entered the local market in 2006, will open its 50th store in Savar before Eid, said its chief executive Abdul Quader.
The company, which opened its 49th store in Badda in the capital yesterday, mainly caters to mid-income groups and has plans to open 15 to 20 stores every year until 2017 to meet the growing demand.
Fortuna Group is also expanding its reach to cater to the fast expanding market.
“The local consumers can see that our products are at least on par with imported products when it comes to quality. And the price, of course, is very reasonable,” said Farhad Reza, deputy operations manager of the company.
The company, which has been in the retail business for about four years now, has 30 stores across the country, six of which were opened in the last one year. “The local market is no longer a small one. The response we are getting is encouraging others to open stores,” he said, adding that the company plans to open stores in every district.
Shampan Group, another exporter, has opened eight stores in Dhaka and major cities since 2012, and will open another five shortly, said its marketing manager Asaduzzaman Saymon.
“We have got huge response in the last one year,” he told The Daily Star.
The official said the local exporters are opening stores in large numbers because the market is huge and consumers have developed the taste for high-quality products.
The group plans to open more than 100 stores by 2020, according to Saymon.
Leatherex Group, which has been exporting leather products including footwear since 2000 mainly to Japan, has opened four stores in Elephant Road, Gulshan, Dhanmondi and Farmgate to provide quality products to local customers.
Group Chairman Mohammed Nazmul Hassan said their aim is to help the country cut its import dependence, adding that the company would open stores outside of Dhaka.
Meanwhile, there are a number of brands who have launched their products in a small way because of funds constrains.
One such brand is Leather Cave, which is a retail store set up by 10 promising leather entrepreneurs, all graduates from the Bangladesh College of Leather Technology.
Its stores in Banani and Hazaribagh sell all sorts of high-quality leather products, including shoes and sandals.
The industry in the past three decades has transformed itself from a low value addition tanning activity to a producer of leather footwear and leather goods along with high value-added crust and finished leather, according to experts.
Zaid Bakht, research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, who conducted a study on the sector with colleague Nazneen Ahmed, said the domestic market is growing due to the efforts of small entrepreneurs.
He said the number of large footwear companies in the country is not huge, but entrepreneurs involved in the sector mostly own small industries scattered in Old Dhaka as well as around the country.
“If we can provide them with finance and space they will come out big, and can contribute to the local market in a huge way while also exporting.”
“There are producers whose designs are of good quality and are even selling them as products from China,” he told The Daily Star.
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