Passing the baton
Coming to the end of their reign, P. Lal Store’s Shyam (left) and Minesh Doshi talk about the legacy they’ve helped build and the uncertainty ahead.
FAMILY businesses often run the risk of failing in the hands of the next generation. Founders may worry that the drive they had to succeed would diminish with each passing on of the reins.
But the Doshi brothers – Shyam, 61, and Minesh, 50, – can say that in their lifetime, they’ve given P. Lal Store all that they could to grow it to where it is today and to ensure that the business remains intact for the next generation.
The burden to keep growing the company is no longer on our shoulders, say the third-generation owners.
“We are generally happy with where we are. There may be some plans in the future but we will not be the ones controlling these plans. It will depend on the next generation,” Shyam says.
This year marks the store’s 89th year.
P. Lal Store was founded in 1929 by Prabhulal Doshi, a migrant from India determined to make a success out of what little he had. He progressed from a salesman to the owner of P. Lal Store, then housed in a rented shop on Batu Road (now Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) in Kuala Lumpur.
One of his four sons, Bhansukhlal Doshi, eventually took over the business and focused on imported men’s leather shoes and winter clothing.
The nine-storey Wisma Lal Doshi on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman was a testament to the company’s rapid growth.
Although Shyam and Minesh, Bhansukhlal’s sons, spent much of their younger years within the store, neither had any initial interest in being next-in-line to run the business.
“In fact, I didn’t like the business at first. I didn’t like being stuck in a place for long hours,” says Shyam.
But academics wasn’t his forte and Shyam decided to help with the business at the age of 18.
However, he was forced to take up the mantle in 1987 when their father suffered a heart attack.
“I had to do this fulltime and I took full control over the business. After that, things came in naturally. We started to focus even more.
“Previously, we were like a small-scale department store. We did bow ties and bedding and all that. We decided to throw it all out and concentrate. And at that time, we noticed that others weren’t doing winter clothing so we grew that,” he says.
Focusing on leather shoes and winter clothing turned out to be a good bet for P. Lal Store. In the late 1980s, there weren’t many other players offering winter clothing, ensuring good margins and growth for the company.
When Minesh started helping out a few years later, business was already thriving and running well without him.
“I was just helping out. It made no difference whether I came in or not,” Minesh laughs.
But after their father passed away in 1997, Shyam told his brother to step up.
They decided to separate the business into two different segments – Shyam was to oversee the leather shoe business while Minesh took on the winter clothing business.
“That was a big challenge because I didn’t grow into managing the business. I was thrown into the deep end and I had to survive. I had to learn the hard way on how much to order, what style will work and what would sell.
“But it was a nice challenge. I still had my brother as back-up,” Minesh shares.
A new home
The brothers decided to move out of their flagship building on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in 2008 when traffic in the city became unbearable. They found a new place along Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya, which Shyam notes is a lot more conducive for their customers.
There is ample space and parking lots, he says.
Their current place has a total built-up area of 24,000 sq ft.
However, there were delays in completing the new building and P. Lal Store only opened its doors again in 2011.
“Because we took a while to open again, people thought we had closed down for good. So business took a dip when we reopened in 2011,” Minesh says.
Additionally, competition in the winter clothing space was, by then, in full swing as more players had made their way into the market.
“We decided to go more on quality stuff.
“But keeping up with the other stores can be quite difficult. They operate out of malls and have many branches. We only have this one store. So that affected us. At the end of the day, winter clothing is not so much about fashion. So
convenience plays a big factor, in that consumers will just go where’s convenient rather than go to specific stores to get specific winter wear,” he adds.
But given its long history, P. Lal Store still has its appeal, particularly with long-time customers. Apart from catering to a slightly more upmarket crowd within the vicinity of Jalan Gasing, Minesh says they continue to draw loyal customers from out of town.
Things are similarly competitive for Shyam’s leather shoes business, especially with the advent of online shopping.
P. Lal carries a wide selection of branded leather shoes including Loake, Barker and Cheaney from England, Morissette from Turkey and Sioux from Germany.
“We take pains to ensure our pricing is competitive – at least, compared to the country of manufacture – to have a good size of the market.
“This is a small market but these shoes can’t be easily copied in China. And we can’t grow the market any bigger. That’s just the make-up of the market. But it is still a market that’s big enough for us,” says Shyam.
Asked if he intends to get on the e-commerce bandwagon, and Shyam gives a firm “no”.
Been there, done that, he says. And it wasn’t a good experience at all.
“Suppliers of good brand names don’t like their products to be heavily discounted through online sales. We were selling our shoes online for a while and were doing well. Ultimately, that success cost us our relationship with some of these manufacturers.
“So we decided to respect the geographical boundaries and deal only in Malaysia. So we are not going in that direction anymore, not even locally. We are sticking with good ol’ brick and mortar,” Shyam explains.
Nonetheless, he admits that its time online gave the company a boost in sales. When they first started selling shoes online in 1999, they were shipping out 20 pairs a year. By 2008, they were doing 20 pairs a day before they stopped their online operations.
Sales has, notably, taken a hit in recent years due to various factors such as the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, currency fluctuations and the growing online retail trend.
P. Lal Store currently makes a collective revenue of slightly less than RM3mil a year. Sales is evenly split between the shoes and winter clothing business.
At the tail end
While Shyam and Minesh have tried to be good stewards of the family business, they acknowledge that there is no certainty as to who will take over from them.
Their hopes rest on Minesh’s nine-year-old daughter – their only heir.
“My brother and I have modernised the business from my father’s time. The fourth genera- tion will probably be my daughter if she’s interested in the business. For now, she likes coming to the shop,” says Minesh.
For sure, he would try influencing her interest in the business, but maintains that the choice to take up the baton will be hers.
Apart from her, there is no other back-up plan for P. Lal Store. The brothers are contented to let the business take whatever course it will when the time comes.
Minesh’s wife, Justine Doshi, believes the business still has room to expand and grow into something bigger. Back to being a mini-department store, perhaps?
“We have the space. And I can see every level in this building selling different types of winter products. We are seeing more demand in the winter market for items like ski-related things. Who knows?” she mulls.
For now, Minesh and Shyam are happy to sit back and enjoy the fruits from decades of hard work.
“The growth period is over for us now. It’s not so much, now, about making money. It’s about keeping the name and the prestige of the brand. That’s good enough.
“Retail brands have come and gone. But we’ve probably been able to stay so long because we didn’t have the greed to want to expand and move in a reckless and risky manner. We stuck to our roots and decided to do this like a boutique store catering to a specialist crowd,” says Shyam.
Eleven years from now, when P. Lal Store hits the 100-year mark, they hope to still be around to celebrate the milestone. But Shyam doubts there would be much difference to the company from how it is now.
“But our confidence is here in the business. Just as we are a generational business, we’ve also seen generations of customers come to us and they know us as a household name,” concludes Shyam’s wife, Alka Doshi.