SHEETAL'S PRIYA AMIRI: About 7 to 8 per cent of the store's revenues come from some form of Bollywood-inspired merchandise like this set	BIBA'S SANJAY BINDRA: An outfit worn by Esha Deol in the movie Na Tum Jaano Na Hum and marketed by Biba sold 40,000 pieces for Rs 12 crore

At south Mumbai's upscale retail store, Amarsons, a small black and white printout pasted on the shop window foregrounds mannequins adorned in ethnic wear. The notice simply says, 'Bunty Aur Babli Suit'. Walk in and ask for the item in question and the sales staff show you a range of 'suit pieces' patterned on the shirt-style tunic worn by Bollywood actress Rani Mukherjee in the latest flick from the Yashraj Films' stable, Bunty Aur Babli. Move into the neighbouring store, Premsons, and you are told that the 'Bunty Aur Babli' range of outfits has been sold out, and the next batch is expected in a month's time. The last one available, for Rs 2,195, has to be bought off the mannequin.

Walk a little further down the road and at Benzer, a premium store on Mumbai's upscale Bhulabhai Desai Road, the sales staff pull out a pure silk version of the same outfit priced at a cool Rs 10,900. The linen fabric variant of the 'Babli' outfit is priced at Rs 5,500 a pop, and that's the lowest price for the product at this store. As a shot in the dark, this reporter asks for the 'Veer Zaara' outfit and pat comes the reply, "That's only available in the party range priced Rs 15,000 onwards".

Now if you're wondering what the point of this exercise is, well, simply put, it's a first-hand feel of the burgeoning market for Bollywood-based merchandise. While no reliable estimates are available as to the size of the movie-based merchandise business, retail consultancy ksa-Technopak estimates the market for ethnic wear such as sarees and salwar-suits at Rs 12,000 crore a year. Even if 1 per cent of that market can be tapped by the Bollywood merchandisers, that's Rs 120 crore in additional business. Agrees Tarun Tripathi, head of marketing at Yash Raj Films and an IIM Lucknow grad: "The market is simply staring us in the face and we really need to start figuring out how to address it."

Bollywood Dreaming

Some are already making their moves. Vipul Shah, producer and director of the recently-released movie Waqt-which stars, among others, Amitabh Bachchan-has taken his first steps in merchandising through tie-ups with brands like Archies and BIBA, an apparel brand with presence in about 130 locations across the country. For an upfront investment of Rs 25 lakh, the Archies brand was woven into the storyline with Amitabh Bachchan playing the owner of Archies in the film. He also creates a toy (as part of the story), Geri (a stuffed Giraffe), and stationery, which now have been launched across 195 Archies outlets. Geri has done roaring business, according to Anil Moolchandani, Chairman and md of Archies. "We have sold 7,500 pieces priced between Rs 399 and Rs 1,199 in three months," he claims. By comparison, regular stuffed toys move at the rate of about 500 in three months, Moolchandani notes.

Titan Industries, which struck a deal with the Shah Rukh Khan-produced Paheli to design and retail jewellery featured in the film as part of its Tanishq brand, also claims to have done very well on the range priced between Rs 20,000 and Rs 4 lakh. "It's been one of our best selling ranges this year," says Harman Dhillon, Brand Manager for Tanishq. Priya Amiri, Director of Strategic Planning at Sheetal, a high-end ethnic wear retailer in Mumbai, couldn't agree more. Already, 7 to 8 per cent of the store's revenues come from some form of Bollywood-inspired merchandise and she expects that trend to intensify in the future. Sheetal has even done Bollywood-based fashion shows in Mumbai, Dubai and San Diego, and plans one later this year in Malaysia. Customers at the shows place their orders for the designer (Aki Narula, Hemant Trivedi) suits, whose prices range from Rs 4,000 to Rs 40,000. Says Amiri: "Our shows have been a huge success in terms of sales."

Even apparel manufacturers like BIBA, set up nine years ago to supply merchandise to retailers across the country, have managed to tap the mass market with movie-based merchandise. BIBA has struck deals with a handful of film producers over the last couple of years to reasonable success. One large format retailer who had ventured into the movie merchandising business with a movie production-Na Tum Jaano Na Hum, starring Esha Deol in 2003-and followed it up by merchandising, is Kishore Biyani of Pantaloon Retail. The chain subsequently discontinued this line of business, but is now planning to revive it.

Sweet Spot? Not Entirely

Despite the apparent size of opportunity, merchandising movie-based products isn't easy at all. The big stumbling-block is the industry's unorganised nature. The first question every producer is confronted with is, why should a retailer pay for an apparel design when he can simply copy it? In fact, that's what has been happening so far. Which is why, in-movie placements for the retail brand become important. Therefore, doing anything profitably means having a supply chain in place that spans suppliers, distributors, and retailers. In the absence of that, merchandisers find the going tough. Take BIBA, for example. According to its Director, Sanjay Bindra, the company needs to commit upto Rs 2 crore as spend on film promotions in return for the rights to manufacture and sell apparel featured in the movie. So to break even, he must make between Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 3 crore. "The operating costs for me on Bollywood ventures are too high," says Bindra.

The other issue is retail reach. Given that the shelf life of a movie-based product is typically four to five months, the merchandiser must sell as much as possible in that short time. In some cases, the window of opportunity is even smaller-say, 15 days-because that's how long it takes copycats to get in. Says Rupali Mehra, Director (Marketing & Alliances), Ad Vista, a strategic consulting firm for film promotions and in-film advertising: "You can't afford to stick with just large retailers with limited presence in the market; the merchandise has to go out to the smallest retailer." BIBA's Bindra is evening considering rolling out his own stores (80 over the next three years) to corner the retailer margin of 35 per cent on MRP.

Finally, producers and merchandisers will need transparency in the supply chain if the business is to grow. Producers would need to know if they are getting the right sales figures on merchandise, since royalties are tied to that. Says Shah: "Merchandising will also help mitigate the overall risk of the film business." Adds Tripathi. of Yashraj Films: "(Merchandising) is a business we don't understand at the moment, but we have definitely started getting a blueprint together."

After all, the rewards are too big to ignore.