Meet India's first rent-a-tie entrepreneurs

They're both 26 years old and are running Al'z Creations, India's first rent-a-tie store in Mumbai. Amar Lodaya and Lucy Mehra -- both management graduates -- may not have 'arrived' yet but the two are definitely creating ripples in the circles that matter.

Their 'store' is on a mezzanine floor of a three-storey building in a wholesale Mumbai market. "We're probably the only retail store on this road," Amar Lodaya says but adds that they couldn't have asked for more.

The building belongs to Amar's family and most of it has been rented to shop owners who have been doing business there for generations. "We started with an initial capital of Rs 40,000. The cost would have been much higher if we had to pay for the space," Amar adds.

Newspaper and magazine clippings about their store adorn a part of one of the walls. The other part simply has various neckties on display. On the opposite side some more neckties and a bunch of t-shirts and jeans. "We also sell ties, tees, jeans and trousers," Amar tells us.

It has been a couple of months since the two started off with this concept and if the figures Amar gives us are to be believed, Al'z Creations is definitely making a mark.

"We've got about 80 clients so far," Amar says hoping that the figure will rise sooner rather than later.

The idea of renting ties came to Amar and Lucy during their stint at an insurance company. "We'd often exchange ties before meetings because invariably all of us had just those many ties in our collection," Amar says.

Lucy, who comes from a garment exporter's family chipped in with her ideas for setting up the business and Al'z Creation came into being.

We have two sets of tie collections -- one is purely for rent and the other is for sale. The two aren't ever mixed," Lucy tells us adding that in all they have about 800 ties so far and the collection keeps getting updated every month.

For a concept that is unique, the charges for their services are quite reasonable. You can use 11 different ties over a period of three months for Rs 500. And you also get a tie of your choice from our retail collection for the keeps.

"We are targeting the average middle class person," Lucy says adding, "So when you think of it, your tie will cost you less than a first-class monthly (suburban) train ticket!"

We point out to Amar that his store is almost impossible to find in the crowded wholesale market. Interestingly, he does not perceive this as a problem. Amar admits that the store is not exactly in a hip location, even though its customers may be upwardly mobile professionals. "But we offer free office delivery of ties too. So it isn't much of a hindrance," Amar says. "If you have an order of over 25 ties, we would be happy to drop by your workplace with our collection."

Amar and Lucy confess that they haven't really faced a lot of challenges per se. In fact neither foresee too many hurdles either. The big issue, according to Amar, is that of hygiene. "Many customers are wary because they are sharing ties with absolute strangers. So we dry clean our entire collection once every fortnight to ensure that you get the cleanest ties possible," he says.

Interestingly, Lucy and Amar won't charge you a fine even if you damage one of their products. "However we let that customer keep that damaged tie and terminate the contract immediately," Amar warns.

To expand their business, Lucy plans to further add to their customer base young MBA students. "Besides targeting corporate houses we also hope to reach out to the many B-schools in the city because their students are bound to require ties for a long time to come. It's always good to catch 'em young," she says.

While she also admits that they haven't yet managed to break even, Lucy is positive to do so by the end of this year. Amar adds, "We also plan to set up franchisees so that more people can access our collection as it grows. But that will happen about six months down the line."

For now Lucy and Amar act as 'proprietors as well as peons' of Al'z Creations. "We've done pretty much most of the work here including hammering nails and sticking wallpaper," Amar says smiling.

That's okay, we tell him, Apple started out of a garage.

Al'z Creations
88, (2nd Floor) Chakla Street,
Near Noorie Towers,
Masjid Bunder (W),
Mumbai