No Splash in the pan

Raza Beig is the centre of all the action at Splash, where a ten-day buying week at the Jebel Ali headquarters of parent company Landmark, the defining moment of the season, is under way. The CEO of fashion stores Splash and Iconic is going through each one of the 18,000-odd designs that territory representatives from various markets — including Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and India — have come to pick from for the next season.

Watched over by Beig, models make unchoreographed forays down the ramp, displaying clothes with price tags attached. The line buyer responsible for the design wields a microphone at the other end, letting the audience know that a knit top will be lengthened so it can be worn over tights, that the buttons on the garment will be matt gold and not silver, and that the pocket detailing will be improved.

Reps sit poised to add an order to the excel sheet on their laptops or flag it down — literally — with the red flags on their table, if a design is not up to the mark. Depending on how popular the piece is with them, it will make it to shops in the UAE and elsewhere at a price point negotiated on the basis of bulk orders — so the pieces more in demand actually work out to be cheaper.

“At the end of this process, we will end up with about 8,000 designs,” Beig tells
GN Focus, before stopping to talk  to the room about the magnificence of a purple knit top, prompting applause for the piece.

From a single store in 1993, home-grown outfit Splash is today the largest fashion retailer in the Middle East, with 35 brands, including 22 in-house labels. And bringing everything under a mono-brand umbrella, a concept introduced in the Autumn-Winter collection last year, in-house brands such as Ms, Nexus and Zync were clubbed together but differentiated by identifiers, such as Splash Youth, Splash Basics, Splash Smart and Splash Vintage.

“In the last ten years, from having 90 per cent stock from other brands, we have now moved to 90 per cent in-house designs. But as one buyer said to us, the consumers take back pieces of us but they don’t take back Splash,” says Beig.
 
“We talked to about 2,000 consumers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — our key markets — and 90 per cent said that they come to Splash regardless of the label,” says Beig. The uni-brand concept is showing great results already. First-quarter results show sales across all territories are up over the same period last year by 16.2 per cent.

Beig is also responsible for Iconic, the edgy multilevel department store that is also expanding across the region this summer. Timed with the annual citywide Dubai Summer Surprises retail promotions and the upcoming Eid Al Fitr festive season are new Iconic stores in Dubai Mall, Ibn Battuta Mall, Marina Mall, Sahara Centre and Al Wahda Mall.
 
Internationally, the retail business may be see-sawing a bit, but here in Dubai, mall owners are pushing ahead and developing further. Dubai Mall, for example, recently announced plans to add one million square feet to the existing 12 million. When is the retail space enough?

“It’s never enough,” comes the swift answer. “I have always believed that good business can be started anytime, anywhere. We opened Iconic in the deep phase of recession. Everyone said we were crazy. We responded saying that this is the only time we would be able to do something like this. To get a 70,000-sq-ft store in Dubai would be almost impossible at other times.”

An important factor in all phases of the economic cycle is the ability to reinvent. “In the last 19 years, we have had five total brand changes. These are complete changes — not just fittings but ceilings, lighting and storing. The world is moving and changing. So we change with the market. Customers recognise this and vote with their wallets,” he says, sweeping aside any talk of competition from other established brands.

“The more they come in, the better it is. They take each other’s market share. People trust us over the last 19 years. As soon as the competition came in, our business became better. Our like-for-like growth comes in from new customers,” he says, emphasising the brand’s focus on being able to provide value for less. 

While to the untrained eye the GCC market may seem homogenous and unified, Beig can count the ways in which each responds differently to trends. “The common trait is that the colour trends are very similar, shapes are very similar. But you do have differences in various markets even within one region — in the Middle East, for instance, Saudi Arabia buyers will probably want longer skirts. Having said that, our biggest seller is still hot pants in Saudi Arabia. The Kuwaiti customer would spend a little more money, the Bahraini would not. She would want better value,” he says.

Stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a few other markets also retail a line of abayas called Tamara. “It is an in-house design. These are not the basics. They are fashion. We compete with boutiques. Ours are about Dh180 to Dh350; theirs start from Dh850 to Dh2,000,” Beig says.

His strategy may work particularly well now that Splash is on an aggressive expansion mode outside of the Middle East and aims to have a total of 150 stores by the end of 2012, with debuts in new countries. Iconic currently has 12 stores across the UAE and Saudi Arabia with plans to add four to five more this year.

Beig is using the franchise model to expand across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia. “We opened in Pakistan recently. Tanzania is coming through. You may see Splash in Sri Lanka soon. In the African belt and in the East — Indonesia and Malaysia — we are talking to people. We would like to expand into four countries in one year,” Beig says.

It is important that collections are made especially for the markets. “Russia is very cold and has a longer winter. In the initial stages we did not know how to tackle it and we told them to buy from what we had. But now we are building special collections for those territories — the special collections will have spring colours but are heavyweight,” he says.

Beig is known to create a splash in more ways than one — his parties, now legendary, bring together A-listers and consumers. The strength, according to Beig, is in taking Splash forward from being thought a trader to being perceived as a brand with a design team that would give the customer a well-designed piece at a value that does not hurt.

“I have seen people who drive Rolls-Royces come into my store now. Whenever I go to social events, at least two people come up and tell me, “I am wearing Splash today,” with such pride. This we did not have five years ago,” he says. “Models specifically are our biggest ambassadors. One model came up to me and told me: ‘I’m wearing Splash from top to bottom, including my underwear.’”