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

Faced with a rapidly aging customer base in their home country, many of whom are rapidly retiring from cycling, the iconic American brand Harley Davidson is taking a curious route to catch Genx bikers in India by establishing their range of fashion apparel in India. After recently starting their presence in India from the northeastern states of Manipur and Nagaland and the northern part of West Bengal, the high-end garments of Harley Davidson would soon be available in places like Varanasi and Goa.

"From now on there are four stores and we started from the northeast and we will have a significant number of stores by the end of the year, now we would expand to the west, north and other places through stores that would appear in the near future in Varanasi and Goa. " said an official of Harley Davidson Motor Clothes as part of the inauguration of the last store in Kolkata.

Dimapur in Nagaland and Imphal in Manipur are home to young people hooked on the latest in Western culture, be it music or fashion, a perfect target for Harley Davidson to present the iconic automotive brand to a generation that is too young to ride a Street 750 or Iron 883 or other models, all of which cost more than Rs 5 lakh.

"It is an internal belief within the company that anyone who comes to Harley Davidson comes through their merchandise," the official said. Harley-Davidson Motor Company had previously partnered with the G-III Apparel Group of the New York Stock Exchange to distribute lifestyle clothing in Asia-Pacific and the first store emerged in February in Shanghai in China, followed by stores in the northeast from India. 19659002]

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

"The stores" Haría Davidson had spoken before opening 13 clothing stores of this type throughout the country in the 2018 calendar, while the company has recently opened its 27th motorcycle store, "he said.

Harley Davidson had previously mentioned the opening of 13 such clothing stores across the country that emerged in Chennai earlier this month.

(By Sumit Moitra, DNA)