Daybreak - How Mokobara and friends forced VIP and Safari to rethink the suitcase

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

The luggage industry seems to have undergone quite a makeover in the last few years. Back in the day, VIP and Safari were synonymous with the plain black and grey suitcases. But now, luggage is as important as the clothes you wear--it's part of the whole airport look.Startups like Mokobara, Nasher Miles, Assembly, and Uppercase have turned luggage into an aspirational lifestyle product with smart social-media marketing and a vibrant aesthetic.Also, important to note is that travel changed after Covid pandemic. The duration of trips has shortened, but the frequency of general travel has increased from once every three months to once every 45 days.The suitcase now has to fit in with the instagram aesthetic so it has gone from being functional to a style statement. As of now, VC-backed, new-age luggage brands only have a tiny slice of the market.But that slice has been growing quickly, and that’s enough to get the old guard nervous.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.We are now on WhatsApp at [phone]. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the Sita Ramancahans, my colleague. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into.

to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode.

What does your luggage say about you when you're traveling? I'll tell you what mine says. That I'm an old grandmother. I have this old Samsonite fabric suitcase and it used to be deep purple but now it looks grey-brown. It's frayed, it's faded and, well, let's just say it's not a pretty sight. But it does a job, you know? And then I'm at the airport waiting at the canoe belt

and I see all these fancy, shiny, bright suitcases and colors that I would have never imagined luggage in. Silver, neon, bubble-cumping. And I'm like, it's a moment of awkwardness. And then I go back to whatever, you know. But that's the thing, right? The luggage industry seems to have undergone this crazy makeover. You know what I'm talking.

talking about. Like, back in the day, VIP and Safari were synonymous with those plain old, black and grey and brown suitcases. But now, luggage is as important as the clothes you wear. I mean, it is a part of the whole airport look, right? In the last few years, startups like Mokobara, Nashamiles, assembly and uppercase have turned luggage into an aspirational lifestyle product with smart social media marketing and vibrant aesthetics. Also, important to note is that travel itself has changed after COVID. People started traveling again with a vengeance. You remember this.

It's not just about family vacations anymore. And it's not just restricted to mostly rich people. There's been an upsurge in solo travel, in business travel, in short weekend trips, you name it. Even the duration of trips has shortened, but the frequency, of general travel has increased from once in every three months to once in 45 days. Plus, every vacation needs to be posted on Instagram, right? Honestly, I'm no different.

So the suitcase has got to fit in with the Instagram aesthetic. So it makes sense that it has gone from functionality to being a style statement in itself. All these new age luggage brands have the interest of venture capitals. And yes, for now, we see back luggage brands only have a tiny slice of the market. But that slice has been growing quickly, quickly enough to get the old gods nervous. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the KEM. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma, and I Don't Chase the News Cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philipos and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time.

Today is Monday, the 3rd of February. An executive at VIP, the 6,000-crawl company told my colleague the Ken reporter Gorev Bougar that until very recently, legacy companies were making what they were best at. But now, they are being challenged to make new things that people demand. The nearly six-decade-old company that makes bags under the names of Carlton, Skybags and aristocrat saw its stock dropped by a quarter over the past 12 months. No thanks to all the competitive pressure or management reshuffle and also growing debt concerns. Safari too has been forced to adapt to the changing tides, growing its online sales and launching more bags that straddle

the line between affordable and high end. But to be fair, investors seem to think that it has done a decent job, considering that its stock was up by nearly 25% in 2024. Samsonite is feeling the pressure too. The global giant has dominated the higher price range space. In the year ending in March 2024, it was at the top with a 35% market share. But in an earnings call, its CEO, Kyle Gendro, said that the level of discounting in the market started by increasing competition is unsustainable for its margin profile. And these new age rivals have come in and targeted the mass premium price range, where products

are generally priced between $3,000 to $10,000. And this is what is especially worrying for legacy companies. This price point has much better margins than the budget segment that has long been VIP and Safari's mainstay. Not just that, it is also one where there is more of an opportunity to keep customers coming back to buy more. And then there is the question of keeping up appearances. Most of these legacy companies had designs that were pretty basic. Uppercases, head of marketing, Ramya Ramachandran told us that travel is no longer about you visiting someplace. It is about

what you capture and put on Instagram. Like we talked about earlier, social media travel has people rethinking how their luggage looks and what it says about them. Let's take uppercase itself, for example. Its trolleys have textured surfaces and graffiti-esque designs. And then there is Mokobara with its bold olive green and black and yellow suitcases that would stand out on any airport conveyor belt. But let's not make the mistake of reducing this whole thing to just looks. There's also the question of innovation. But innovating within a legacy brand and innovating for a new age brand are not the same thing, even if ultimately they offer the same products. Stay tuned for more on this, but before that, I want to tell you about this brand new limited

series podcast by the can that just dropped today. If you listen to Last Friday's special, then you already know about it. But if you didn't, that's okay. I'll just play the trailer for you Don't go anywhere. Two months ago, we posted a challenge to some of India's brightest and most creative minds at the country's top business goals. In three sentences, the challenge before you is, number one, you're a quick commerce company. Number two, you have $1 billion. Number three, how will you win? That's it.

Welcome to $1 billion in 10 minutes, a podcast based on the Ken's inaugural case competition organized in collaboration with Zerodav. You just heard Praveen Gopal-Krishnan, the chief operating officer of the Ken and the author of our newsletter, The Nutgraph. For the case competition, our in-house team headed by Praveen, shortlisted 10 teams out of nearly 100, competing for a 10-lack-rupy grand prize. And over six episodes, you will hear parts of their ambitious and creative pitches, all 10 minutes long, rooted in the real world, and centered around five quick commerce platforms that have completely changed the way we all shop. Big basket can win by leveraging the Tata brand to collaborate with Tirana partners in a cost-efficient manner.

Now, winning for us is simple yet ambitious to make five-minute delivery the new normal. So the basic core of our strategy is aggressive expansion. We don't see Flipkart becoming the Zomato but the Uber eats of this place. Ten teams, 10 minutes, 10 lakh rupees. Only one strategy can win. I'm more. Rahil, and this is $1 million in 10 minutes. The analyst pointed out to us how, apart from just better looks, these new-age luggage brands like Mokobara and Nashamiles also offer a wider variety

of more differentiated products at the same price point compared to legacy players. For example, they said, VIP and Safari mostly play around with colours in the $2,500 price range. On the other hand, a similarly priced piece from Nashamiles might offer higher quality materials and wheels or a more interesting design. And then there is also the supply chain angle to take into account. Nearly all the industry executives and investors who spoke to the ken said that hard luggage, made of durable plastics, has taken over the market from soft luggage like duffel bags and fabric suitcases that were once upon a time popular. A safari executive told us that such bags are more conducive to creating a wide range of design options. Plus, harder luggage is just cheaper and simpler to manufacture at scale because it does not require physical labor to stitch.

Soft luggage, on the other hand, is usually made in China and Bangladesh because these countries have a more advanced and efficient textile ecosystem. Hot luggage requires a simpler assembly process that can be easily done domestic. This has lowered the barrier to entry. For example, uppercases products are made in eight factories located across India, all wire manufacturing partners. But now the company is setting up its own factory in Maharashtra's Nashik. Other new brands are also mostly manufacturing in India, except Mokobara, which relies mostly on China for its supply chain given its higher price point compared to other new brands.

The brand was recently in the spotlight after some social media users accused the company of white labeling, which is when a company just rebrands a mass-reduced item and sells it as its own. But soon after, many people jumped into the debate and clarified that Mokobara's designs are indeed its own and that the World Intellectual Property Organization website even lists Mokobara's registered designs for multiple products. Anyway, the point was hard luggage is cheaper to manufacture and more design-friendly. So why don't legacy companies just make fancier-looking hard luggage? The co-founder of Nashamiles, Lokesh Daga, explained it to us. He said if VIP gets in loud-colored suitcases and backpacks targeting 18 or 20-year-olds,

it may not gel well with their brand positioning. But big players still need to focus on increasing their share in the mass-spers. premium market because it is these higher price tags that drive their profits. An analyst pointed out how before this, their focus was on the mass range because that is where the volumes were. But they said, you also have to remember that these products are also commoditized and heavily discounted at both the wholesale and retail level. Like Safari, for example, came up with the urban jungle range to premiumize while also optimizing the supply chain to offer better quality products in the same price range. And it shouldn't be so hard for these legacy companies because

they follow the house of brands method for selling. So they can offer both premium and budget products under different lines. But you see, these legacy brands like most other legacy brands are heavily dependent on middlemen and distributors across the country. Newer brands, on the other hand, are going omnichannel. They are more in tune with customers' preferences because they mostly sell online. Having said that, though, the likes of VIP and Safari are much, much bigger than these new age brands and that is always an advantage. But if they don't catch up soon, new age luggage brands may cement themselves in this space for good.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snickda Sharma and edited by Rajiv Sear.