Present khadi like the branded stuff’

Take khadi to malls, display it professionally, sell it proactively. These are some of the conclusions Ahmedabad University students draw from their project, ‘Study of the challenges faced by the khadi industry and its marketing’

Yogesh Avasthi
Perceived association with politics and ‘outdated’ ideals, limited outlets, and lack of proactive sale are holding khadi back. Also, lack of awareness among the youth is balking the industry’s growth. These are some of the findings of a survey by a group of students of Ahmedabad University.
Conducted as part of the bachelor’s study, the study gives some solutions, too, to push the hand-spun cloth up on popularity chart. Loosening government control over the design and sale, upgrading the artisans, bringing them in tune with fashion trends and making sales personnel at outlets display and sell the cloth aggressively could bring a turn-around, the group of 10 students of B K Majumdar Institute of Business Administration say.
The “Study of the challenges faced by the khadi industry and its marketing” involved a survey of 1000 people, 350 users and 650 non-users of khadi. “Khadi needs to be taken to malls and presented as branded stuff. Displaying khadi on mannequins so as to give the potential buyers the impressive look it could give them would go a long way in increasing the sale of khadi,” the group says.
Currently khadi is available only at Khadi and Village Industry Board outlets. “If the fabric is made available at other shops, too, then word of mouth publicity would make more people aware of it,” the students feel.
The main objective of the project was to identify and analyse the challenges faced by the khadi industry in Gujarat and to study the existing marketing practices and experiment other potential marketing practices for the same in the city.
The group is currently working with two khadi stores, Kamdhenu and Khadi Sarita. In these stores the group is helping to rearrange the display and training the personnel there for customer service. This initiative is taken to give the customer a feel of exclusivity.
As part of their experiment, the group made modifications in certain in-store factors that affect the sales in the store. These factors include the display of stocks, their arrangement as well as the way the staff attend and behave with the customers.
Guided by professor in charge Chirag Trivedi, the project has had a tremendous impact on the group, and all ten — Alisha Attarwala, Ankur Rampuria, Ayush Challani, Enamullah Kooshan, Jainee Nathwani, Kamlesh Dharmchandnani, Manish Narang, Priyansha Vashi, Rinkesh Rathod, Shruti Nagar — have started wearing khadi and trying to persuade friends to take to the fabric that has a history behind it. “We will try to have a khadi day as part of the series of annual days that we celebrate in our college,” the group says.

Findings from the study
♦ Khadi is not very popular among the youth, primarily because the word ‘khadi’ is deeply associated with words like ‘outdated’, ‘Gandhi’, ‘politics’, etc.
♦ Among the non-users of khadi, around 57% never wore khadi in their life, so one of the basic problems is the awareness among the people.
♦ The major reasons for the non-users to not purchase khadi is the fewer number of outlets, unsatisfactory display at the stores and lack of awareness of the fabric.
♦ Among the users of khadi, 75% people are occasional wearers.

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