Unique retailer Soch, which specializes in Indian ethnic women’s wear, has launched in Canada with its first store in Brampton, Ontario.
Vinay Chatlani, Executive Director & CEO of Soch Apparels, said the Bangalore, India-based company currently has 176 stores.
The Brampton store is the first for the brand outside of India.
“I’m third generation retail. The retail started a long time ago. For Soch specifically, the first store was in 2005 in Bangalore,” he said.
“We have been looking at southeast Asia, North America and Canada and we saw a good location. It was a franchisee that is actually known to an Indian franchisee of ours. We’ve seen the performance of similar brands, or other brands, in this space and we just thought it was a good place to start. It was either going to be some place in New Jersey or Canada and we just found a really good spot for this store.”
Chatlani said the Brampton area has a good Indian population.
“While we might slowly get into doing a lot more fusion clothing, it’s predominantly ethnic wear right now so it is going to appeal mostly to the Indian population and that’s where one of the biggest populations is,” he said.
“I think Toronto could take another store or two. We’re looking at Vancouver and Montreal next. We’re hoping to have three open in the next two years in Canada.”
The Brampton store is about 1,250 square feet. It’s on the smaller size of the range Soch normally does with stores ranging from 1,200 square feet to 2,400 square feet.
“We deal only in women’s ethnic wear. So it’s Indian clothing. We do feel that we have a mix of fairly contemporary stuff and we also have a fair amount of traditional stuff,” said Chatlani.
“I think as a brand we lean more towards evening wear and occasion wear not necessarily bridal because that’s what a lot of brands do. They specialize in bridal. But we do keep stuff for most occasions.”
He said the customer demographic in India is about 60 per cent in the 18 to 35 year old age bracket.
“I think it also depends on the category because we also sell saris which tends to lean towards a slightly older audience. In Canada, we think that the average may be slightly older because younger Indians, especially second, third generation Indians, probably just wear Indian clothing more for occasions and special events,” added Chatlani.
“It’s our first store. We’re really excited to do our international expansion. We’re probably going to be closing on two stores in Malaysia (soon). But we’re hoping to get a couple in the U.S. in this year and hopefully our second Canadian store by the end of the year.
“We’re also excited to start playing around with western wear and fusion wear if the demand asks for it. I think it’s something that we were wanting to do since pre-COVID but obviously everyone wanted things to settle down and we finally got the right partner. So we’re excited about the journey.”
