The director of “CottonKing” Pradeep Marathe, originally from Miraj, came to Pune for a job and settled in Pune.
He studied mechanical engineering, completed his MBA in marketing and started working. At that time there were few MBA students and Marathe’s skills led him to great job success. They were already thinking that they should have their own business. After settling down in the job, he felt that he would be able to raise enough capital for the business, but he did not have the courage to quit his job and start a business. But one day he decided and resigned from the job. The more important question was what to do the business. Marathe’s marketing work was for refrigerators, air-conditioners (AC). But he wanted to do something different from this field so he chose cotton shirts. There are some people in the society who take the society forward. Today, every home uses his brand of shirts.
“CottonKing” is a must have shirt in every household today and a favorite brand of everyone from young to old. Marathe himself likes cotton clothes, but as a consumer, he complains that when he goes shopping, he doesn’t get much variety in the shops. If you want to buy clothes of big brands, the prices are very high. They realized that many consumers like us would be looking for a better alternative He chose this business even though he had no special knowledge of the clothing business From this, a brand called “CottonKing” was started in 1996.
Initially, it was not an independent brand. Buying cotton clothes of various brands and selling them in Marathe’s shop. In this, customers could get a variety of cotton shirts, but since the cloth was basically of a different brand, Marathe could not keep their prices as per his own will So decided to start “CottonKing” as a brand and manufacture it ourselves. Production of shirts started in 1998. CottonKing was self-sufficient in production till 2004. First they made formal shirts then one after the other they started making casual shirts, t-shirts, trousers and jeans as well. This brand has showrooms in all the major markets in the state, now this brand has reached the state of Karnataka Goa as well. In the next phase, there are plans to start branches in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Started by a man from a completely different field in his forties, this brand is now turning twenty years old.
“CottonKing” a Puneri brand of cotton shirts was first launched at Nalstop in Pune and today has reached all major markets of the state and other states as well. Today Cottonking has more than 120 FRANCHISES and Cottonking’s revenue is more than Rs 400 crores.
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