Ajita Shashidhar,
Vinay Kamath,
Chennai, July 3

After making its foray into the greeting cards market with Gold Flake Expressions late last year, ITC Ltd.’s cards business division is all set to extend the Expressions brand into a slew of paper-based gifting products like gift wraps, gift bags and paper plates. A variety of stationery is also on the cards. Towards the end of this financial year, ITC also plans to launch a chain of exclusive Expressions outlets around the country.

In an exclusive interview with Business Line, Mr. Chand Das, Chief Executive, ITC Greeting Cards Business, said : "By extending the Gold Flake Expressions brand, we hope to become a Rs.250 crore player in the greeting cards market in India in the next five years." The brand at present, has a five per cent share in the Rs.300 crore cards market, while Archies and Hallmarks have around 35 and 15 per cent share respectively.

Gold Flake Expressions cards are available in several multibrand outlets in as many as 350 towns across the country with an over one lakh population. The flagship retail outlets, which will showcase the entire range of Expressions products, will come up in all the major cities of the country.

Mr. Das hopes to have at least 100 Gold Flake Expressions outlets in the next five years. In the long term, he also hopes to create a complete gift store concept which would have a number of gift items like toys, watches, CDs and pens. "But we will tie up prominent brands, and not have our own branding in these segments," remarked Mr. Das.

"However, our immediate goal for this financial year is to target consumer awareness, which we ar doing through a series of advertisements and promotions, after which the other paper products will be rolled out. The launch of flagship outlets will be slotted for the next financial year," said Mr. Das. "We also plan to launch our television ads in early August," he added. The division expects to invest Rs.10 crore in the business this year, most of it in brand building. Mr. Das expects the division to break even in four years’ time.

In tune with the current e-cards craze, Gold Flake Expressions also has its Web site, www.goldflakeexpressions .com, which has a range of online greeting cards. Mr. Chand felt e-cards would definitely make an impact in India on a short term basis, but over the years the craze may fade out as it has done in markets in the West, where e-cards have ceased to be a novelty and conventional paper cards are on an upswing.

ITC’s Greeting Card Division has a network of 65 distributors around the country with an online ordering facility called the B2B Ordering System. "This online ordering system has made networking extremely simple. Distributors in far-flung states like Assam and Manipur can get to us in minutes, what would have easily taken at least 15 days," remarked Mr. Das.

Apart from extending the brand and launching retail outlets, Mr. Das is also planning to put up card racks in places of high traffic like cyber cafes, coffee pubs like Qwikys and even retail outlets like Food World.

"Greeting cards are most often impulse buys, and if we have a presence in such outlets we will definitely get good mileage. In fact, 15-20 per cent of greeting card sales in the UK happens in grocery stores," said Mr. Das.

Having released around 1,200 designs in the last one year, the company hopes to come out with at least 4,000 designs this year from its designers in India as well as from the US, UK and The Netherlands. The collection includes around 50 per cent of everyday cards like birthday, wedding anniversary and fun cards, while the other 50 per cent includes festival cards like cards for Mothers Day, Friendship Day, Diwali, Christmas and New Year.

"We even have cards for typically regional festivals lie Baisakhi in Punjab and Poila Baisakh in Bengal. By this we are trying to penetrate into the upcountry market," said Mr. Das. ITC’s cards cover over 30 festivals during the year. "Our pricing also ranges from as low as Rs.5 to Rs.54, which suits all pockets," he added. Mr. Das hopes to carve a niche in the greeting card market in India by carrying out operations based on research findings.