Leather industry of

Bangladesh

What is Leather?
Leather is a durable and flexible material created by
tanning
animal rawhide and skin, often cattle hide. It can be
produced at manufacturing scales ranging from
cottage
industry to heavy industry.

Uses of Leather

Leather industry of Bangladesh

The leather industry in Bangladesh is well
recognized and is a significant foreign
exchange earner. The industry is completely in
the private sector, which has been proven
fully capable of handling it. Out of the total
207 tanneries of Bangladesh, 186 are located
chaotically in Hazaribagh area in Dhaka where
84 percent of the total supply of hides and
skins are processed in a highly jam-packed
area of only 70 acres of land.

Leather Sector

Importance and Future of Leather Sector in

Bangladesh

Leather sector is perceived to be one of the

important economic sectors in Bangladesh. As
a single sector of the economy, the sector
contributes modestly to the countrys GDP.
Contribution of leather sector (hide &skin,
leather and leather goods, and footwear
except rubber) to GDP is 0.31% (at constant
price) in FY 2014.

Major Industries of Leather

Sector
Apex Tannery Limited.
Apex Footwear Limited.
Bay Tannery & Footwear Limited.
Bata Shoe company Limited.
Leatherex Footwear Limited.
Picard Bangladesh Limited.
Ramim Leather & Finished Goods Corporation.
Fortuna Bangladesh.

Marketing Leather Sector

Research :
The first step would be to know the market by
answering the following questions:
Know the Target Market:
Who are the potential clients?
What number of will be there in the market?
What amount/ how frequently/ do they

purchase?
Is there any changing patterns?

Marketing Leather Sector

Market Environment:

How is the economy influencing the market?

Who are the potential contenders?

What will be the piece of the pie of the contenders?

What is the level of rivalry?

Is it value/ brand and so forth?

Item Plan :

What brand name/ image do you need?

The items advertise destinations?

How you plan to position the item?
The item promoting system to attain achievement?

Marketing Leather Sector

Deals:
What will be the deals targets for the next 12

months?
What cant avoid being the - income?
What will the terrible benefit gauges?
What geological territories do you wish to spread?
Dissemination
How would like to disseminate the items?
Is it through the current dealer network?
Is it through extra merchants?

Strategies for Selling Products

Businesses can follow either the pull or the
push strategy, or a combination of both to
market their product to the masses.

Strategies for Selling

Products
Push Selling:
New merchant arrangement [ time/ schedule]
Yearly deals gauges for the new merchants
Month to month stockholding for the new merchants in
their dealership.
Yearly deals gauges for the current merchants
Month to month stockholding for the current merchants in
their dealership.
Consistent exchange rebate
Exceptional discount reward for lifting more stock -say
20% over keep going year.
Train the deals delegates.
Standard deals commission.

Strategies for Selling

Products
Pull Selling:
Immediate promoting advancements to the use of catalogs.
Seasonal promoting advancements to the purchasers with
extraordinary value built in light of volume.
Deals drive by the deals reps. on major retailers.
Create a steadfastness program for 12 months for small
independent stores.
Promote in the neighborhood papers/ magazines with a
markdown voucher offer with which people can purchase the
items from the neighborhood merchants, utilizing the voucher.
Load the site with a rebate voucher offer with which people
can purchase the items from the neighborhood merchants, by
downloading/ utilizing the voucher.

Parameters
Parameters will to understand if the marketing
strategy
is actually working.
Sales Targets
Recovery/ Sales Collection
Business on net money
Invoicing Record

Marketing Tools
Leather goods are considered luxury goods
and therefore ordinary marketing strategies
do not work for them. They are to be handled
very delicately and treated as limited user
goods and therefore, the marketing strategies
should also be very much be targeted towards
the target market.

Marketing Tools
TVC :
The people who use leather products do not
normally have a lot of time to sit back and
watch TV commercials. So it may not be a
very viable approach.

Print Ad
Print ad might be a bit more
effective if it is specifically
targeted to the rich and up
class. Therefore, the
placement of the print ad
must be done accordingly.
Magazines work best in this
case. Historically, print ad of
leather goods have always
known to show richness and
class in them so that must be
kept in mind. Here is a
sample of some of the print
ads.

Environmental impacts of
Leather sector
The treatment and processing of animal skins and

hides can be a source of considerable environmental

impact. Discharged wastewater contains pollutants
from the hides, products from their decomposition and
chemicals and various spent solutions used for hide
preparation and during the tanning process. Solid
wastes and some atmospheric emissions also may
arise.
The major public concern over tanneries has
traditionally been about odors and water pollution from
untreated discharges. Other issues have arisen more
recently from the increasing use of synthetic chemicals
such as pesticides, solvents, dyes, finishing agents

Environmental impacts of
Leather Sector
Simple measures intended to control pollution can

themselves create secondary cross-media

environmental impacts such as groundwater
pollution, soil contamination, sludge dumping and
chemical poisoning.
Tanning technology that is now available, based

on a lower chemical and water consumption, has

less impact on the environment than traditional
processes. However, many obstacles remain to its
widespread application.

Modern Leather Industrial City-Savar

In the year 2003, the Government of
Bangladesh announced that the tanneries
situated in Hazaribag will be shifted to modern
and a purpose-built cluster in Savar, 10
kilometers from Hazaribag, on the banks of
the river Dhaleswari. The key emphasize of
the Savar cluster was to be the Common
Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP), compliant to
international environmental standards. The
Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries
Corporation (BSCIC) is the implementing
agency for the project.

It will hold up 195 tanneries with an employment

probable of 100,000 people. However, transfer
and moving to designated modern tannery cite
with on handout old machineries from the existing
Hazaribagh cite is a huge challenge, and a matter
of big investments for the tannery owners.

Challenges of Leather Sector

Political Situation :
Bangladesh faces political turbulence on a
regular basis. Hartal or Strike is the most
common political weapon here. Along with all
other industries, leather industry is bearing
the brunt of the ongoing political turmoil.
Almost regular blockades and strikes have
badly affected the overseas business.

Diseases and accidents:

Working in a tannery can expose a person to various
diseases. As alarming as this sounds, the tanneries recruit
children laborer too who are more vulnerable to such
environment. They often suffer from diseases such as
fevers, diarrhea, respiratory problems, and skin, stomach,
and eye conditions. Asthma is a common phenomenon.
Cheap Chinese Products:

As the leather industry is a growing one, dumping is

not a major setback yet. But it has started. Chinese
and Vietnamese products are the major problems.
Though it is not happening at an alarming rate yet, the
irregular occurrence worries the businessmen in this
sector

Smuggling of Leather :
Smuggled leather is another concern for leather
sector businessmen. Smuggling of rawhides and
skin to the neighboring India through various
border areas is a new but alarming problem. This
causes huge loss.
Lack of Technical Knowhow in Designing:
The leather industry is growing. They have lots of
options to explore. The idea of a full bloomed
leather sector is not building a castle in the air
anymore. The growth needs more expert hands
and ideas.

Low investment in R&D:

Research and Development is very crucial for a
growing industry. But as much as the leather
industry needs R&D there is no functional
initiative for it. Apparently anyone can start a
business in leather sector without any technical or
theoretical or institutional knowledge about it.
Foreign Currency Fluctuation :
Currency fluctuations are natural and are
influenced by numerous factors. It has various
impacts too. Foreign currency fluctuations affect
relative supply and demand of the two currencies,
economic performance, outlook for inflation,
interest rate differentials, capital flows, technical
support and resistance levels etc.

Small Market :
The leather industry is growing and the market is
too. Still in Bangladesh leather goods have a very
small market. It is still a totally export oriented
market, though a small one. The goods are priced
really high for the local consumers. For further
improvement of this sector, it needs local growth
too.

Conclusion
The leather industry must keep up with the

changes around, in order to survive and compete

against its rivals.
Marketing activities and e-marketing efforts

following the general tendencies of our time are

among the leading issues that should primarily
and carefully be considered in the leather
industry.