Harley Davidson takes merchandise route for its bikes to roll into Indian hearts

Faced with a rapidly ageing customer base at its home country many of whom are fast retiring off from biking, iconic American brand Harley Davidson is taking a curious route to grab the Genx bikers in India by establishing its fashion apparel range in India. After recently kicking off its India presence from north-eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland and northern part of West Bengal, Harley Davidson's high-end apparels would soon be available in places like Varanasi and Goa.

"As of now there are four stores and we have started from the northeastern part and we will have a significant number of stores by the year-end. We would now expand to west, north and other places through stores which in near future would come up in Varanasi and Goa," said an official of Harley Davidson Motor Clothes at the sidelines of the inauguration of the latest store in Kolkata.

Dimapur in Nagaland and Imphal in Manipur are home to youngsters hooked to latest in Western culture, be it music or fashion, a perfect target for Harley Davidson to introduce the iconic motoring brand to a generation who are too young to ride a Street 750 or Iron 883 or other models, all of whom costs upwards of Rs 5 lakh.

"It's an internal belief within the company that anybody who comes to Harley Davidson comes through its merchandise,” the official said. Harley-Davidson Motor Company had earlier tied up with New York Stock Exchange-listed G-III Apparel Group to distribute lifestyle apparel throughout Asia-Pacific and the first store came up in February at Shanghai in China followed by stores in North Eastern India.

The Kolkata store opened on Monday, inaugurated by Karen Davidson, great-granddaughter of co-founder William A Davidson who is in charge of Harley Davidson's general merchandise line.

"The stores would introduce young men and women of India to the spirit of the brand," she said.

Harley Davidson had earlier talked of opening 13 such clothes stores across the country in calendar 2018 while the company has recently opened its 27th motorbike store, which came up in Chennai earlier this month.

(By Sumit Moitra, DNA)