To meet the winds of change sweeping across the handloom industry, Co-optex, the Tamil Nadu Handloom Weaver’s Cooperative Society, is looking to ramp up its presence in the e-commerce space by tying up with more online stores to target the younger generation. It recently collaborated with Flipkart and Snapdeal to make available its entire range of products online. “We will be tying up with more portals like Myntra to expand our presence in the growing e-commerce space and target both domestic and overseas buyers,” T.N. Venkatesh, Managing Director, Co-optex, told The Hindu.
The co-operative society has already clocked sales to the tune of Rs. 10 lakh through the e-commerce route, out of which Rs. 2 lakh sale was done through Flipkart alone. “We have seen great response to our collections from across India after our entry into the e-commerce space. To give an instance, today an Assamese student studying in Pune University ordered a saree through our own portal,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
Oragnic touch
To meet the changing trends and to attract the younger generation, Co-optex launched its latest product, organic cotton sarees, at its showroom here at Suryabagh on Sunday. Dyed with environment-friendly natural and vegetable colours, the aesthetic designs of the sarees are woven by traditional weavers in and around the Negammam area of Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu. The colours used are obtained from flowers, leaves and seed such as turmeric, ecliptes, alba leaves, karungali wood, musa sapientum, floral branch and annatto seed.
“As many as 14 weavers’ co-operative societies with 275 weavers are involved in making the organic cotton sarees,” said Mr. Venkatesh. Each organic cotton sari comes with a tag containing the weaver’s photograph, name, age and a bit of his background. “When a customer buys a garment, they don’t realise it has gone through so many adept hands. So, we wanted to give the weavers an identity,” he said. Since its launch in March this year, Co-optex has done sales worth Rs. 1 lakh of its organic cotton sarees alone. The price range of these sarees is from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 4,000. The product is also available on its online storewww.cooptex.com. Shortly, it will be introducing organic cotton salwar kameez collections and linen shirts for men.
“In AP, we are organising 15 exhibitions till November 10 covering major cities and tier-2 towns to popularise our organic cotton collections,” Mr. Venkatesh said. “Co-optex is expecting to do over Rs. 6.5 crore business sales from AP and Telanagana region during the upcoming festive season of Vinayak Chaturthi. It is also looking to focus on modernising its showrooms across cities in a big way and Rs. 8 crore has been allotted for this.”
The company has clocked a business revenue of Rs. 306 crore in the last fiscal, with a profit of Rs. 10 crore. With the growth in demand for Co-optex products and leveraging on the boom in e-commerce platform, Mr. Venkatesh said, the target for this fiscal is to cross Rs. 325 crore.
We will be tying up with more portals like Myntra
T.N. Venkatesh
Managing Director of Co-optex
