Marico’s wellness brand Kaya Skin Clinic is looking at a services and products combination to grow. For this, it plans to expand Kaya Skin Bar, a smaller retail format that it piloted last year, to other metros.
Kaya Skin Bars will be spread across 500-700 sq ft, compared to the existing clinics which are about 1500-2,000 sq ft. The store will offer skincare products, while Kaya Skin Clinics will offer technology-led cosmetic dermatological services.
“We currently have about three stores in Bangalore and are looking to expand to other cities. The shops will have about 50 stock-keeping units in 13-odd categories, including rejuvenation, anti-ageing and acne, among others,” Arvind R P, Head Marketing, Kaya Skin Clinic, said. Arvind said the focus on retailing the product stemmed from the fact that the products were currently contributing about 20 per cent to its total revenue. Kaya has 83 skin clinics across the country.
“We want to become an end-to-end solution provider in the skincare business,” he said. Services currently contribute to the balance. The company reported revenue of Rs 336 crore on March 31, 2013, a 12 per cent growth over last year.
Restructuring
Earlier this year, Marico had initiated a restructuring exercise which saw the demerger of its skin solutions division Kaya into a separate entity called Marico Kaya Enterprises (MaKE). The company had then indicated that it would be focusing on smaller stores to achieve a faster break-even for Kaya. The demerger was done to facilitate the consolidation of Marico’s FMCG business in India and overseas. The company plans to list Kaya Skin Clinic on the bourses. Kaya contributes 7 per cent to Marico’s Rs 4,000-crore top line. Arvind said Kaya Skin Bars would be competing against brands such as The Body Shop, Kiehl’s and L’Occitane, among others.
The company said among the key growth drivers are anti-ageing and skin-lightening products and services.
Arvind said anti-ageing as a category was growing at 30-35 per cent. “We are looking to strengthen the minimally invasive services portfolio with new products and services”.
Invasive and surgical procedures constitute Rs 700-800 crore of the overall anti-ageing market. Out of this, minimally invasive services account for 60 per cent, as opposed to surgical treatments.