This Hong Kong-based Eyewear Brand Eyes Expansion in India via Franchising

Tell us about the Brand, “Mujosh”

Mujosh is a brand that belongs to the Photosynthesis Group, which is a large group into the eyewear brand from China. They have three of their own in-house brands for spectacles and sunglasses, and they have tied up with Essilor for lenses.

Photosynthesis group has more than 800 stores across the world. One of its brands, Mujosh, is an upscale eyewear brand, slightly on the premium side with which we are planning to enter into India. The plan is to set up our first store by the end of April 2019.

What attracted you to enter the Indian market?

My personal belief is that within the accessories’ category, the lifestyle accessory category can never go out of demand.

1. The unit model is so efficient in terms of economics because it is small, the ticket size is big, and therefore everything falls in place; it is very difficult to go wrong with the accessory model in India.
2. Now, coming to sunglasses as a category, the category has evolved a lot in past few years from being a basic utility product to that of a fashion product and now it has become the fashion for the occasion, so one can own more than one or two pieces of sunglasses. Hence, the market is growing especially the segment we are operating in and the premium luxury segment is growing faster than the others.
3. There are not many organized players available in the market especially in this segment; in fact, there is only one player. And that one player manages and runs about 150 stores, so there is ample scope for two or three more players to enter and stay in the market. And, there will always be a demand, which we think we will be able to fulfill.

What should the Indian audience expect from an international brand like Mujosh?

The biggest player in this category has one stable product, which is in a way its bread and butter. But, beyond that, it has hardly got anything else to offer. However, on the other hand, Mujosh offers a very youthful collection of sunglasses and the brand derives its inspirations from different things, which could be as simple as stripes on jackets or stripes on cats or tigers; starting from a piece of cloth to an animal. It’s a completely youthful product, where one would want to own multiple pieces in his/her collection.

What are your franchising strategies for Mujosh?

It’s purely going to be an aspiration brand. My consumers will be driven by aspirations; likewise, my franchisees will be driven by aspirations. Commercially, it’s a small unit, high ticket price, so it is always going to be in a viable position. But we are still looking for franchisees, who want to associate with an international brand and be recognized in their circle as that person who “manages the Mujosh store”.

Since Mujosh has its presence in many countries, how is it going to be different in India?

In this age of accessible information, you cannot function too differently from the rest of the world. It plays to our advantage when we are matching our store format, our product offerings, and price offerings in any developed market.  I don’t need to be different or stand out as a player compared with the developed market. I want to be in sync in terms of look, feel and other offerings that are either as good as or better than the developed market, only then the consumer will buy my product.

What is your franchise vision?

We are going to be very selective, in terms of our roll out. We are only targeting three cities in the first phase of expansion and they are Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. And, in the second phase of expansion, which will happen after 18-20 months of the first phase, we will target another four cities. After we are done with that, then we will look into other cities and other markets for expansion.

We will be going slowly; we will pick up premium locations in these premium cities and nothing less than that.

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