Peppo Fashions Group, an importer of fashion clothes and accessories, will add a new brand to its portfolio within the next three months.

Peppo's general manager Emilie Isidoro Singhabhandhu said France-based Promot, which has products in the same price range as Zara and MNG, targets fashionable women.

She said the brand had a high reputation and 500 stores worldwide.

In Thailand, Peppo expects to open two stores this year and three more in 2008.

Peppo is a distributor for Marciano, MNG, Castro, Guess, Guess Kids and Guess accessories.

Emilie said the new brand would not affect sales of current brands as they all appealed to customers with different tastes.

Also, the introduction of a new brand was expected to boost Peppo's sales after it suffered a slowdown, mainly because of a fall in consumer confidence due to political and economic uncertainty.

She said Peppo had to manage its operations for effective cost, provide better services and initiate more interesting marketing activities to ride out the slowdown.

However, Singhabhandhu would not reveal the marketing budget for this year.

She said competition would focus on capability to serve the most favourable products to customers.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation