For us, trust comes before business

For over nine decades, Vijayalakshmi Silks has upheld its tradition of bringing one of the most prized possessions to the Indian woman, her sarees. Beautiful designs, elegant drapes, exquisite colors, the enterprise has transformed a simple six yard cloth into a breathtaking masterpiece. Its endeavour has been to capture the rich legacy of Indian art, culture and heritage in its products. C V Govardhan, managing partner of Vijayalakshmi Silks & Sarees, speaks to Vyas Sivanand about their unique features and their expansion plans.

When did you start this business and how have you been able to create a distinct niche for your brand?

We started in 1920 in Chickpet and since then it has been a family business with strict adherence to trust and quality. Probably, as a brand, we are one of the oldest in the silk trade. There may be some small timers, but they may not have made a brand for themselves as us.

Every trade has its unique feature and for us, first comes trust which is implemented as a policy. We are not here to just make business, we are here to earn the confidence of our customers through our tradition of truth. Our salespersons are trained in such a manner that they understand our policies completely. We have strongly instructed them to abide by our philosophy which does not entertain any kind of marketing tactics to sell our product. That is one reason why we have been in the business for the last 92 years and we will ensure that it goes on for generations.

Today, the reputation of our brand is such that buying from our store is considered to be a good omen. So any auspicious occasion is directly linked to purchase from our store, which has built a strong base among our customers. Repeat customers have been our strength and the drivers of our business. It is not uncommon to find people coming through word-of-mouth and reference.

What are your expansion plans?

We are using a calculated approach to our expansion. We opened a Jayanagar branch about five years back after which we opened a branch on Mantri Square about two and half years back. Less than a year ago we opened a branch in Mysore. It is a family business and we are grooming the youngsters in the family to take up particular branches. We are looking at having a few centers in Bangalore, especially saree centric centers. We are assessing other locations for saree centric centers.

The expansion will be dependent on our youngsters within the family. We want our family involvement in the business.

My younger brother’s son is being trained and groomed to handle a branch. Once he is ready, we will open a branch.

My son is currently studying in Australia. Once he is back after his education, he will be groomed to understand the business and then we will open a new branch for him. We do not want to haphazardly expand and give it to somebody else. We do not want to dilute the product otherwise our reputation will be at stake.

What are the main offering from your stores?

We offer cotton sarees which include Kornad, Uppada, Venkatgiri, silk and cotton mix, poly silk, polyester cotton mix, Sambalpur cotton etc. In silk, we have Kancheevaram, Benaras, Crepe, Satkalam, Patola, Vishnupuri, Pythani, Dhakal silk, etc. We also have silk shirts for men, scarves, ties, dress materials, suit sets, kurtis, dhotis, etc.

What are your promotional strategies?

Most people in the business used to go for a promotional sale during the Gowri Ganesha festival time. But we did not follow that pattern. 20-years back, we found that during the Ashada month, our weavers were facing difficulty in financing themselves.

So, we started to help them in their finance and as a result they started to provide us with materials at a concessional rate.

We buy en masse in few hundreds from the weavers. We in turn sacrificed the profits and started to give a discounted price to our customers during this period. It was a complete win-win situation. We usually have the sale for a week to ten days.

What is the costing of your sarees during the sales period?

The price during the sale is between Rs 1,500 to Rs 40,000. Else the price goes to more than a lakh.

From where do you procure the materials?

We procure our products from in and around the villages of Kanjeevaram. We have also started to source fancy sarees in the last 2-3 years, considering the demand during our sale.