[govigov]

Being a larger size as well, I tend to head out to the Pantaloon store on focuz mall, Bangalore. AFAIK, they don't have the "ALL - Plus size store" in entire Kerala.

[skumare]

You can checkout http://www.thestiffcollar.com for some decent shirts in 46...50 size range.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by frankmehta

Besides, ALL comes up with yearly sales, and that's when I go buy their stuff.

When does ALL have their yearly sales? And what kind of discounts?

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Think you guys should try Tirupur, our member Harrie had earlier posted that he has a manufacturing facility there and that he could help. The stuff that comes out of there is awesome and they do have the PLUS sizes of many popular brands, the quality too is just great.

Are you suggesting we go to 'Tirupur' the place to buy clothes? Or does he have outlets in Bombay?

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by carboy

Are you suggesting we go to 'Tirupur' the place to buy clothes?

I would definitely say that is worth a trip, you could club Ooty, Coonoor, Coimbatore also as a holiday.

I did last summer and bought loads of quality clothes/accessories. For e.g Ferrari T-Shirts for Rs.200, Nike/Armani caps for Rs.100. Will put up pics if you want.

Harrie had mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that he could help, why not contact him.

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by carboy

When does ALL have their yearly sales? And what kind of discounts?




Are you suggesting we go to 'Tirupur' the place to buy clothes? Or does he have outlets in Bombay?

You wouldnt want to go near those ALL stuff,they have real lousy fits.The brand's attitude is we are atleast keeping your size so dont ask more.As for the sale times,they have it alongwith the Pantaloon sale.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by ranjitp1

As for the sale times,they have it alongwith the Pantaloon sale.

When is the Pantaloon Sale?

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by carboy

When is the Pantaloon Sale?

They have one in February other than that no idea,good idea to call up the store and ask

[RajeshK]

Originally Posted by carboy

When does ALL have their yearly sales? And what kind of discounts?

Last July there was a sale with upto 50% off at Pantaloon @Gopalan Mall, Bannerghatt Road Bangalore. Usually the +sizes will be there who deals with export surplus items.

[huntrz]

At the risk of sounding off topic I would like to add that Indian business from clothes to cars and bikes- target only average sized guys 5' 6" and 65 kgs. The sheer number of average sized guys(with no offence to avg sized people) are so much that they don't bother to store any thing more that waist size 36-38 and shoe size 8 and that itself is enough to keep their stores running and hence they are not even interested to store anything else. Even large sized crockeries and furniture are disappearing from stores. Things are becoming thinner, smaller and lighter. I find this as a big conspiracy to increase profitability by cunning manufacturers.

Coming to the topic- in Hyderabad I have seen the so called plus size store banner in Hyderabd Central, never visited it though.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by huntrz

At the risk of sounding off topic I would like to add that Indian business from clothes to cars and bikes- target only average sized guys 5' 6" and 65 kgs. The sheer number of average sized guys(with no offence to avg sized people) are so much that they don't bother to store any thing more that waist size 36-38 and shoe size 8 and that itself is enough to keep their stores running and hence they are not even interested to store anything else. Even large sized crockeries and furniture are disappearing from stores. Things are becoming thinner, smaller and lighter. I find this as a big conspiracy to increase profitability by cunning manufacturers.

Coming to the topic- in Hyderabad I have seen the so called plus size store banner in Hyderabd Central, never visited it though.

That's Walmart strategy because shelf space is limited.

Amazon.com is totally opposite because they have virtually unlimited shelf space. The Ecom will have to pickup in India to have such outlets become mainstream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail

In the graph in this article, walmart focuses on high volume products (in green), amazon focuses on yellow part.

EDIT: The other option would be to pay higher prices, you can not expect retailers to subsidize low volume products, unless for PR purpose. Everybody is learning to do Lean business nowadays

[supremeBaleno]

@huntrz, I am not sure what conspiracy angle you see in retailers stocking stuff that is most expected to sell since it caters to the requirements of the majority (90% or more) of their target customers ? Any level-headed business would operate that way only IMO.

BTW, even when some guy tries out-of-the-box business by stocking plus-sizes, those who complain about lack of plus sizes themselves do not bother to drop in. Case in point being you yourself as indicated by the last line of your post.

BTW I never knew it was so tough for some people to source basic stuff like clothing/shoes that average built people like me take for granted. At waist size 32 and shirt-size 40, shopping is a breeze and only about style / design - never worried about stores not having these sizes in stock. Looks like being average has its advantages too.

[huntrz]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

@huntrz, I am not sure what conspiracy angle you see in retailers stocking stuff that is most expected to sell since it caters to the requirements of the majority (90% or more) of their target customers ? Any level-headed business would operate that way only IMO.

BTW, even when some guy tries out-of-the-box business by stocking plus-sizes, those who complain about lack of plus sizes themselves do not bother to drop in. Case in point being you yourself as indicated by the last line of your post.

Never visited the plus size store I mentioned because I am not there yet but am on the borderline(waist size 40 )
Even the online retailers don't stock any thing beyond XL in apparels.
Don't agree that 90% of the market consists of average customers but yes they are a majority but that doesn't mean there is no market for larger or different stuff. Let me give you an example I have a king sized bed(6' x 6.5') and the bedsheet that properly goes on a king sized bed measures 9' X 9' but that is so difficult to find because the market is filled with the bedsheets catering to normal doublebeds(4'x6' bedsize) segment and the retailers don't bother to sell anything else. Most of the brands don't even make a bedsheet of that size.

The regular furniture(particularly chairs of dining table) on display in the likes of home center etc don't look convincing enough to handle 100+ kg people.

The walls of buildings used to be 15 inch(outer ones) and 10 inch(inner ones) in olden days. Now 8 inch and 4 inch is the norm(shrinking).

All this makes me feel that manufacturers are cutting costs to increase the profitability and insensitive to the people who may have different needs.

Until few years back bike manufacturers were so happy selling 100 and 150 cc bikes that they never cared for the market for larger bikes. But given the number of CBR 250R and Dukes on the road today one cannot say that there wasn't a market for that. Its just that manufacturers weren't selling.

I had the hardest time finding shoes of size 10. Most of the showrooms Addidas Reebok etc spend a lot in setting up a huge shop but try asking for size 10 or more and you will have to choose from what ever 2 or 3 shoes that are available and sometimes none. God forbid if someone's footsize is 11 in India!!

Level headed business cater to majority- I don't buy that. Lot of business target niche segments. Looking around I find that large(not necessarily fat) people are not that rare either.

Don't take the "conspiracy" part in literal sense.

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by huntrz

Don't agree that 90% of the market consists of average customers but yes they are a majority but that doesn't mean there is no market for larger or different stuff. Let me give you an example I have a king sized bed(6' x 6.5') and the bedsheet that properly goes on a king sized bed measures 9' X 9' but that is so difficult to find because the market is filled with the bedsheets catering to normal doublebeds(4'x6' bedsize) segment and the retailers don't bother to sell anything else. Most of the brands don't even make a bedsheet of that size.

The regular furniture(particularly chairs of dining table) on display in the likes of home center etc don't look convincing enough to handle 100+ kg people.

I had the hardest time finding shoes of size 10. Most of the showrooms Addidas Reebok etc spend a lot in setting up a huge shop but try asking for size 10 or more and you will have to choose from what ever 2 or 3 shoes that are available and sometimes none. God forbid if someone's footsize is 11 in India!!

Fully agree with Hunterz on the points mentioned,the mantra now a days is less cloth and more money.A simple case in question is try going into any of the sports shops (being a sports player myself I know the vagaries quite well)and picking up a dry-fit shirt.The same brand would have an XL which has absolutely no difference with its L size.I once ordered directly from the manufacturer of a very prominent sportswear manufacturer and when the t-shirts came I just could not believe what I saw.I had two XXL T-Shirts of the same style,fit,colour but of vastly different sizes.I blew my top seeing it and when I raised the issue with the higher management,the secrets came tumbling out and they accepted their folly and the reason is because,those two t-shirts were supposed to be sent to two different outlets and apparently the guy who packed my order did not know-he simply packed looking at the labels,but its only the so-called-people-who-matter in the organisation who knew of all these devious acts that corporates and so called reputed companies get into.Cloth and textile business is huge profit and big margin business.

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

BTW, even when some guy tries out-of-the-box business by stocking plus-sizes, those who complain about lack of plus sizes themselves do not bother to drop in. Case in point being you yourself as indicated by the last line of your post.

Your point does not hold good to a large extent and is precisely the mindset of these so called chains like ALL and a host of others who love to bracket the so called 38waist and above into a group called as "oversize".Just by opening a shop that sells plus sizes does not guarantee business for the shop owner.I am definitely oversize by Indian standards and have been like this right from my school days but I too step into an ALL showroom only once in a bluemoon because they just have quantity and no quality(they would have three racks with the same style and same color of shirt).Like I mentioned earlier the attitude of these so called plus-stores is"be thankful we have your size,dont look for style quotients here" and this is precisely why a store like Revolution(a Mumbai based chain with an all India presence who keep a relatively low profile) is a favourite among women who want bigger sizes,their stuff is to die for and is frequented by all sizes of people,same goes for upteen other shops who dont advertise themselves as exclusive plus stores but stock up on all sizes,but the industry instead of concentrating on quality are more hell bent on getting their cheap popularity and business by way of branding stores as Plus size,Big size.So the bottom line is,if a store opens with just quality in mind,sooner or later the store would make business,but just by concentrating and banking on size at the expense of quality to make money is a very bad business model and IMO they deserve to go into losses

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by ranjitp1

and picking up a dry-fit shirt.The same brand would have an XL which has absolutely no difference with its L size.

Well, I recently picked up a few T-shirts and unlike shirts where size-40 is usually the same across brands, T-shirts are tricky since an L could have different definition across brands. So usually I would try a trial T-shirt to identify the correct size and then go about selecting the T-shirts that appeal to me. Tried M first and it was too tight. Tried L and it was the fit I was looking for. So, there is obviously a size difference between M and L and I would think XL would be obviously bigger in size. I don't see a reason why someone would have M, L, XL labelled apparel, but all in the same size. Even if they do (to cheat), it won't be long before the game is up.

Originally Posted by huntrz;

Until few years back bike manufacturers were so happy selling 100 and 150 cc bikes that they never cared for the market for larger bikes. But given the number of CBR 250R and Dukes on the road today one cannot say that there wasn't a market for that. Its just that manufacturers weren't selling.

Well, that is only 1 way of looking at it. Over the years other things have also changed like - increase in income and thus disposable income of consumers, attitudinal change in the consumer's buying behaviour etc. So, even if they had put up 250cc bikes for sale 20 years ago, I doubt there would have been the kind of interest we see now.

For sellers it is about stocking (and selling) what will sell and avoiding pile-up of inventory of stuff that does not meet the requirements of the majority - leading to them having to offload those at huge discounts later. And this can be seen across products. Eg. car dealers will have in their yards, the most number of small cars (Alto/Eon/Brio) and very few or nil of the bigger ones like GV/CRV/SantaFe, since the smaller ones are more in demand and quick moving, while the others are slow-moving.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by huntrz

At the risk of sounding off topic I would like to add that Indian business from clothes to cars and bikes- target only average sized guys 5' 6" and 65 kgs. Coming to the topic- in Hyderabad I have seen the so called plus size store banner in Hyderabd Central, never visited it though.

I am in the same boat as you. I am 6ft. 1inch and have a large frame with a 39" waist. I am not necessarily fat but, i am just a big guy as you know

My feet size is 12" and I find it difficult to buy shoes as the brands or models that I like are never in stock. Therefore, all my shoe purchases are 90% abroad and 10% Delhi. Very rare in Hyderabad

Coming to clothes, I find it difficult to get jeans of my size. 40" is sometimes shapeless or 38" is too tight. sometimes in some brands I cant even fit into a 42" Jean. Getting a jeans which is all about a good fit ( read makes me look slimmer) is indeed a task

I have visited Central Mall where you mentioned about the "Plus Size" its a brand from Pantaloon so you get them at all Pantaloon stores. But, i recommend you dont visit as their sizes are simply too big ( American, if you known what i mean). Their XXL shirt size is 46, 2X is 48, 3X is a ridiculous 50" or 52".

I fit into a 44 size shirt from a few brands ( like Koutons, but they shut down now) but, many brands i dont even fit into 44 as they are straight fit which narrows down at the waist.

Anyways, its a tricky situation. Control your urge to dig into those delicacies OR be satisfied with fewer clothes.