By MARAIA VULA
Deluxe Footwear Fashions Limited has expanded to Nakasi.
An investment of close to $100,000 was made to open its new outlet late last year.
Company managing director, Dharmendra Parmar, said: “Everything is quite expensive and you have to do everything right from the start.
“We have too many stores in Suva city so we decided to setup in centres where people need us and that is why we moved to Nakasi and to places where there is no shoe shop.
“It’s not only about making money but providing services to our customers, which are part of our service now.
“The new outlet is good for our customers who live within the Nasinu to Nausori corridor who don’t have to drive to Suva to buy shoes,” he said.
In total the company has 70 employees in all its outlets and factory as well.
Deluxe outlets
Deluxe has six outlets throughout Fiji at the moment, four in Suva, one in Nadi and one in Nakasi.
“We must be catering for about 60 to 70 brands at the moment in different sizes and exclusive brands, we sell about 50 in- house brands as well,” he said.
“We do direct manufacturing and packing in our own factory at Vatuwaqa, so the customers get good deal, quality and value for money.”
He explained that they manufacture their sandals in Fiji under the brand name TUFF.
“It’s done pretty well. It’s already sunk in two months ago since its launch and sales for this has been good and customers who buy it are happy.”
Target market
He noted Fiji was already their market.
“Now we are selling to Papua New Guinea and Samoa and we are also looking at a few other countries; our nearby neighbours,” he said.
“Exporting is very important and foreign exchange is also involved; we are raking in money and also creating awareness on the other side.
“Fiji is too good and it’s on another level; whereas PNG has no shoe manufacturing factories, no shop or nothing exclusively done,” he added.
“For our company there is no competition because we have raised our products as number one products and we won’t substitute.”