UAE. Ajmal Perfumes underlined its commitment to travel retail with its debut appearance at the TFWA World Exhibition in October.
Already active in the travel retail channel in the UAE, Ajmal Perfumes is now looking to branch out globally, starting with its May appearance at the TFWA Asia Pacific exhibition this year.
“We have adopted various strategies for growth,” Ajmal Perfumes Deputy General Manager Abdulla A Ajmal told The Moodie Report. “We’re vertically integrated in the Gulf – we have our factory and our own retail outlets. We have about 129 outlets at the moment. On the other side of the business is expansion through exports and strategic alliances as well as through travel retail.”
The family-owned fragrance house, based in Dubai, has been trying to get a stand at the Cannes show for four years, the third-generation Ajmal said. “This is the first time we’re exhibiting in Cannes. As a first experience we didn’t expect a lot, especially with the economic situation, but the response has been fairly heartening.”
While there weren’t many walk-ins, he added, the interest from the “serious people” and those whom they’ve made appointments with have been “very, very good”. Ajmal placed the “hit rate” of the meetings at 80-90%, particularly in the areas of export and travel retail.
There have been several positive leads in terms of exportation, with much interest coming from the CIS countries as well as Indonesia, he added.
During the past three years Ajmal Perfumes has been developing several exclusive fragrances for the duty free channel – and the move is paying off. “Our travel retail exclusives have garnered the most interest with the majority of the duty free buyers and retailers,” Ajmal noted.
The company’s travel retail exclusive products include Believe for Him, Believe for Her, Unveil, Dahn Oudh Platinum, and Zeyna.
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| Ajmal’s travel retail exclusive fragrances – (L-R) Unveil, Believe for Her and Zeyna – have garnered strong interest with duty free buyers, according to Ajmal Perfumes Deputy General Manager Abdulla A Ajmal | ||
While he admitted that now was not the best time for a new brand to break into the travel retail industry, Ajmal felt it was a crucial move towards global exposure. “The entry was necessary for us. We may have gotten an entry at an unfortunate time but it doesn’t matter – we’re here to stay.”
Ajmal aims to take the business global by 2014, and he sees travel retail as the ideal platform to get the wide scale coverage needed.
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“Our vision is to be a globally recognised luxury brand within the next five years“ |
Abdulla A Ajmal Deputy General Manager Ajmal Perfumes |
The company has been pursuing an aggressive advertising campaign at both TFWA shows. “We believe in making a good presence in communications. This will help to reinforce the brand recognition over a period of time. It’s an investment which we hope to see the results of at a later stage.”
Ajmal Perfumes went to Cannes with the objective of securing listings with at least three retailers – and they did, Ajmal reported. The company hopes to gain entry to the IAADFS Duty Free Show of the Americas next year.
Ajmal added: “We’re aiming to open up to about 200 stores in the next three years. We’re expanding our retail network to Europe and East Asia as well.” The brand already has a presence in Singapore and will soon expand to Malaysia and hopefully, Indonesia.
“We’re very strong within the GCC [the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain all feature signature Ajmal outlets -Ed] and we’ve got substantial presence in the Persian Gulf through alliances with distributors and agents.”
Apart from that Ajmal is also present in North and East Africa, with plans to conclude deals in South Africa.
“This year we had hoped to get Europe started, but because of the recession we put a hold on it. We are planning to open our own retail store in London by Christmas 2010,” Ajmal said.
“[Our entry into] travel retail is purely for the exposure – whether we make money or not is truly immaterial. The exposure is a lot more important because in the long run it benefits the other areas of our business.
“Our vision is to be a globally recognised luxury brand within the next five years,” he underlined.
For more information, contact Maysan Al-Hajeb, Head of Travel Retail, Ajmal Perfumes, tel: + 971 4 269 01 02 (Ext 273), fax: + 971 4 262 97 47, mobile: + 971 50 554 92 78, or e-mail: maysan.alhajeb@ajmal.net.
Visit www.ajmalperfume.com.
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