The move comes in the wake of Benzer extending its existing catalogue on a digital format on the Net. The company has tied up with HDFC Bank, Citibank and ICICI in order to carry out the business-to-consumer initiative and has invested Rs 10 lakh on the Website. Benzerworld.com, a commercial site was launched in 1997, with an investment of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Says Benzer managing director Hemang Salva: "The new Website is not only targeted at marketing 150 products abroad, but offers colour choice to the customer. Customers have the benefit of ordering gifts through the Website from India to abroad and vice-versa."

According to Mr Salva: "The company will focus on a single price strategy for its products being ordered from any part of the world. As part of the marketing strategy, the relaunched Website is targeted at the mailing list of Benzer's existing customers to whom we send the catalogue."

The company hopes to garner Rs 2 crore through marketing its products online. In February this year, Benzer plans to kick off an advertising campaign with an adspend of Rs 25 lakh. The company also plans to launch a promotional campaign in countries like USA, Europe and South Africa.

"In the campaign, the company will focus on an ad film and air it on all leading media channels like Zee and Sony and in all theatres playing Hindi films and viewers as the target audience."

Eliciting an example, Mr Salva says: "If we look at the kind of people who have put up orders in last fifteen days, the orders come from very remote areas of USA where there is no access to an Indian store or an Indian boutique. Hence, coming up with the campaign for such customers to enlighten them on the new Website solves the hassles of travelling."

"Earlier the Website was just a catalogue on the Net with imitations as the company could not meet every customer's requirement for a catalogue. Since its inception in 1997, the company used to send 15,000 printed catalogues which consisted of the product information," said Mr Salva.

According to him, at that time, no credit card company would give Benzer approval at that point of time. The company started getting inquiries over the Net from customers who intended buying the products on the Net. At that point, the company had a deal with Citibank where the bank would give the approval by fax whereby the customers would send the fund in the back copy of the credit card by fax and thus get the approval for the items to be purchased on the Net. ``That's how offline transaction was being carried out in the years 1997, 1998 and 1999," says Mr Salva.

By the year end 2003, the company plans to open five retail outlets under "BenzerWorld" at USA, UK and South Africa which will store a new line of Indianised western clothing.

The company manufactures ladies and gents ethnic wear within its six manufacturing facilities. The total size of the bridal ethnic clothing in the Indian market is 2,50,000 units.

With an additional investment of Rs 15 crore, Benzer also plans to launch a 1.5 lakh square foot four-storeyed shopping mall at New Mumbai, Thane, by the year-end 2002. The mall, to be targeted at the medium end of the market, will be called `Benzer Lifestyles'. Benzer is a partnership firm owned by Chiman Salva, Chapshi Nandu and Mulji Nandu.