GEORGE TOWN, Feb 21 — For over three decades, Sam’s Batik House has been — and continues to be — the go-to place for cotton kurtas/kurtis, Punjabi suits, skirts and even household items like table cloths and bedspreads.
Located strategically along the busy Penang Road, the clothing store is well and truly an icon of the city, as much as Cheong Fatt Sze (the Blue Mansion) nearby.
Sam’s Batik House was founded by Shamdas Bakhtani back in 1982 as a clothing store and today it is one of the main importers, exporters, wholesalers and retailers of all things batik and Indian traditional-wear.
The small shop is crammed with a dizzying variety of the latest in Indian fashion but what really keeps drawing customers back is the couple running it now: Shamdas’ son and daughter-in-law, Manohar S. Buxani and Resham M. Buxani.
Manohar and Resham, who are better-known among customers as Michael and Rachel, place geat emphasis on customer service. Yes, even their nicknames were chosen so that their customers can easily pronounce and remember them.
Here, the couple talk about the beginning of Sam’s Batik House and how they keep it going all these years.
In their own words:
Michael: My late father started Sam’s Batik House in 1982... I was still studying but I was already helping out. Then my father got a heart attack and I started taking over slowly... taking over in the sense that I was running the show together with my mother, brother and sisters. I came into the business at the age of 17 and I’ve been in it ever since.
During the Vietnam war, the GIs used to come to Penang for their break… they used to call my late father “Sam.” His name was actually Shamdas but they started calling him Uncle Sam. Those days, my late father and late uncle used to run a business together, opposite the Cold Storage in Penang Road… they had a shop called GM Shamdas. It’s the same clothing business. That’s when my father had a vision that when he starts his own business, he will name it Sam’s. So he started this business in 1982 when the brothers decided that both families are growing and needed their own two shops.
I officially came into the business when my father passed away. When my father was sick, my mother had to stay home to take care of him. He was still in charge then and when he recovered, he came back to the shop. But we were running the business, travelling and doing what we need to do to keep the business going. It has been 15 years now since he passed away.
The clothes we source are from all over the world… India, Indonesia, Thailand, China and Hong Kong. Most of the fabrics for our clothing are natural fabrics… cottons and silks, except for swimwear. Mostly, we believe in selling more natural fabrics because nowadays the weather is so hot so everybody prefers to wear cotton.
I used to travel quite often but now with the technology we have, when they have anything new, they will send pictures and we will select and order in containers. I still have to travel to check on the merchandise but not as often. If previously I have to travel a few times a month, now I travel once in a few months. It’s easier now, saves the cost of travelling and saves time.
Rachel: We have a lot of regular customers… we don’t make a sale for the sake of making a sale. We will tell the customer if something doesn’t look good on them, it’s not about making money only. If it doesn’t look good, we will tell them to get something else. We go to that extent. We also supply shops all over Malaysia; not only in Penang, but also in Australia and to regular customers in US.
We have two daughters, they are still studying and also come in to the shop to help out whenever they can. One is Divya who is 21 and Aanchal is 23. They are taking care of the online store and website. Mostly my older daughter does it all while the younger one helps out. They take care of the cash register now because with the GST, we have a new system. They computerise all the bills because we are so used to the old system of writing our bills.
We work as a team basically. My husband takes care of the orders for the shop and I take care of the display, the staff and the cleanliness of the shop. We have tailors for alterations but we do take orders for tailor-made clothes as well such as dresses, mostly by foreign tourists, and also sarong kebayas, Indian saree blouses, Punjabi suits and anything that the customer wants. If they want to make place mats and table runners, we can make them also.
Michael: Our business is good so far. We have survived the worst recessions, in 1992, but of course, we were a very small shop. In 1997, it was the worst crisis Malaysia has ever had and the only good thing about it was that the Malaysian ringgit was pegged. Now, with the currency fluctuating, it is a bit more challenging. Being importers, we are facing the biggest challenge. We are not hedging our bills because we are uncertain. We have paid bills at RM4.42, RM4.49, RM4.39 and suddenly the ringgit becomes RM4.16 so when you think about it, if you had waited for two three weeks... Even when you hedge bills at RM4.28, RM4.29 and now today, it’s RM4.16, that means the bankers sell you at RM4.20 so you already lost money at the foreign exchange. It’s going to be difficult for every importer. We don’t want to unnecessarily increase our prices, it’s not right. We are not charging GST for our products.
We have no plans to expand. Expansion is very easy but if you don’t have the right people looking after your business, you can go chap lap (bankrupt). I have a lot of friends, they have expanded and expanded and the staff kept saying business is very good and then suddenly, the money is missing. By the time they realised it, it’s too late so they close down the operations and then they come back to Penang. In this kind of business, you have to focus. It depends on what you are doing. If you are doing IT and this and that, you can expand, no worries. But if you are doing clothing and all that, you have to be very careful.
