Finders keepers, losers weepers, just rightly describes lawn buyers every summers; the airy, and untextured fabric is a plain weave textile, chiefly cotton, and perfect for the harsh summer weather of the country.
While the customer rage has often been talked about, lets look at the lawn business. There was a time when lawn wasnt an eye candy for the designers and the buyers alike it was just plain fabric worn primarily by women to breeze through the scorching summer season. At best, there was a distinction over high versus low quality where Gul Ahmed, Alkaram and a few others were the big players.
The industry took a leap when designers jumped in and improved the design aesthetics. The designer and textile mill collaborations picked up in what came to be known as designer lawn.
Lawn market today has developed to a whole new level; from just a generic textile item, the market has hundreds of designer lawn brands, and double the unbranded, informal producers. Domestic apparel and fashion industry has grown massively over the past few years, and a part of it has been due to a rise in household incomes as well as growth in younger population.
However, unlike the prints and designs, lawn market dynamics are not that rosy; it is a saturated, matured market with surprisingly low margins due to cut throat competition. Though there are no numbers available, the lawn market is being reported at around Rs40-60 billion. A BR genie tells us that the informal and organised producers produce around 10,000 suits and 100k-200k suits per manufacturer, respectively. In that case, with a lawn market of 100 designer brands and each producing at least 100,000 lawn suits with an average price of Rs5000, the reported figures for the size of the market make sense.
An even striking feature of the market is that amid fierce and rising competition, prices per designer lawn outfit keep rising every year. This time around, the designer lawn price ranges from Rs5000 to Rs8000, which is higher than what it was last year. This is primarily because the market targets the brand conscious consumers where price increase plays the opposite role.This is just the branded market. There is a much bigger market of the informal/unorganised sector that continues to cater the price-conscious masses.
In short, the trending lawn business and the market is quite complex where the designer and textile manufacturers are done with the first two Ps of the marketing mix (no differentiated product with designs becoming banal, and no price differentiation as such for a specific target market), the industry is more of a play between the other two Ps of the marketing mix i.e. the place and promotion. Producers and sellers are now focusing on their strong distribution; or heavy advertising promotion spending; or focusing on online selling and pre-booking - a staggeringly growing phenomenon.