1. Introduce yourself and briefly describe your background.
My name is Dato Kenny Yee. A Malaysian businessman who ventured into Indonesia in 1990’s. Founder of PT Winn Appliance in Indonesia which engaged in manufacturing and retailing of household gas appliances under its established brand “Winn Gas” in Indonesia market. In 2012, Dato Kenny Yee bought over the entire 100% stake in H.O.L Chain Store (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd which operate House of Leather, Kaufmann and Country Hide concept stores. Since then, he has upgraded the concept store design to enhance the customer’s shopping experience and expanded the business rapidly beyond Klang Valley.
2. Why did you decide to go into this business? How long has it been established?
House of Leather was established in 1996 with almost 2 decades of history. Dato decided to venture in House of Leather retailing business as he is able to value add into this business based on his manufacturing and retailing background for the past 20 over years in Indonesia. Further, House of Leather has substantial followers with more than 90,000 privilege card members which provide valuable marketing database.
3. Describe your range of products and services. What is your top offering?
Our products ranges from varieties of office bags to casual bags and travelling bags and luggage. We also sell small items accessories such as wallets and belts to complement our main products. Our products cater for both women and men. We carry established brands such as Bugatti, Kaufmann, Country Hide, Carlton, Bruno Manfred, La Pagayo etc. We provide after sales services and a large range of our product comes with warranty. We do not have a fixed top offering products as the design of the products change rapidly and we have more than 1,000 models. Generally, for those looking for formal office attire accessories and bags, our Kaufmann and Bugatti leather range of products are very popular. Those who prefer outdoor casual bags, most of them will look for Country Hide’s leather range of products. As for luggage, our Bruno Manfred and Carlton luggage offer varieties of design and functions.
4. Who are your clients / customers? Why do they select you over others?
Our customers are mainly from middle and higher middle segment. I guess House of Leather is one of the few bags retailers that has been around in the market for about 20 years. In fact we are one of the pioneer and hence, we provide proven reliability and assurance of our products to our customers.
5. Provide an overview of your franchise. Highlight its special features and benefits.
We have just recently embark on franchise business for House of Leather concept store. One of our special features is that we don’t charge royalty as we believe in win-win partnership. Franchisee will obviously benefited from our huge database of privilege card memberships for marketing purposes and its long established brand name of almost 2 decades in the market.
6. Can you describe the profile of your typical franchisee? How do you choose them?
We would prefer owner operate franchisee. We do not prefer typical investor who are not hands on. We will screen them through interview for their past experience and their track record of financial standing. We are looking for quality franchisee and not quantity. We would prefer to have say 10 franchisee running 50 franchise stores (5 franchise stores each) as compared to having 50 franchisee running 50 franchise stores (one franchise store each). Hence, we are looking at franchisee who has the potential or quality of running a chain of franchise stores in the long term.
7. Have you turned down prospective franchisees? What are some of the reasons?
We have many enquiries and parties who are interested and hence, we have to turn down some of them. One of the common reason for turning down is that they stay too far away from the location they choose to operate as we want an assurance that they will manage the store personally especially their maiden store. We also turn down if we find that the potential candidate does not possess the necessary charisma to run this business. Retailing business requires an extrovert type of person and willing to spend their weekend to manage the store as weekend is the golden hours for retailers.
8. What kind of support, assistance and advice will you be providing to your franchisees?
We will provide training, pre and post commencement of franchise business. We will also provide on-going visual marketing display, marketing and promotion assistance and advice our franchisee on unique selling points of our new range of products from time to time.
9. What is the anticipated duration between start-up and profitability for your franchisees?
Generally, we are targeting ROI (Return of Investment) of 2 to 3 years depending on location.
10. What are the future plans for your business (range of offerings, geographical reach, franchise system etc)?
Geographically, we are targeting South East Asia market. Having said that, we may explore other regions as well as currently we do have enquiries from Middle East market and Eastern Europe countries.
We intend to expand our range of offerings and will be launching Kaufmann, The Apprentice Series soon to cater for young executives market. As for the franchise system, we will upgrade from time to time where necessary.
11. Words of wisdom for all aspiring franchisees
The fashion retailing franchise business demands immediate and proactive reaction, a consistent determination and drive, essential qualities to tie all these qualities together. Being successful at the early stage of business does not mean the journey has ended- in fact, it has just begun. They should always wary about accepting the fact that they are successful. On the contrary, they must think that they still need improvement and it is this attitude that has translated into providing the best shopping experience to their customers.
12. Please give your contact details so that your target prospective franchisees will know how to reach you.
Website address: www.houseofleather.com.my
Tel: 603 6280 2898
Contact Person: Puan Wan Nor (wannor@house-of-leather.com) and Miss Daris Cheah (daris@house-of-leather.com)