India’s Leading Footwear Giant Bata India had laid down serious plans to open about 500 franchise stores which would be in small towns over the next five years, a top company official said in a press release.
“We now have 150 franchise stores. We are looking to get about 500 franchise stores. These will be single-store towns. That means we are looking at 500 towns. We have charted out a five year plan for this,” company CEO Sandeep Kataria told media persons after its 86th annual general meeting here.
The footwear major was also adding around 100 stores every year, while closing 25-30 outlets for couple of reasons like opened in wrong locations or economically not feasible.
“The net figure is around 70. There is a combination of renovating the shops, sometimes, increasing it, sometimes relocating it,” said company Chairman Uday Khanna.
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In 2018-19, Bata India introduced 71 new retail stores and 51 franchise ones, besides renovating 47 outlets. It relocated 47 outlets and closed down around 28 shops.
The company now has approximate 1,500 stores across the country, and has over the past three years pumped around ₹260 crore for upgrading its manufacturing plants and modernizing its retail stores.
“The company’s main endeavor is to improve the customer experience, get more contemporary, and get more younger people to the stores. The challenge is younger people are not getting attracted to Bata in the fashion we would have thought.
“Emphasis now on the marketing team is to retain your loyal customers and get new and young customers, we are also concentrating more on women’s shoes,” said the official.
What “Bata” is planning to do in Future ?
– Increased emphasis on offline stores (opening new ones, relocating, renovating etc.)
– Modernizing it’s manufacturing plants
– Increased focus on young customers
– Women empowerment ( 7 entirely women run stores).
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The company invested around ₹100 crore on its stores in the last three years. Bata now has seven entirely women-run stores, and is planning to open one in South Kolkata, which will also be its first such outlet in eastern India.As much as 85 percent of company’s sales are through its stores, while about five percent comes from e-commerce.