Indian Terrain eyes doubling exclusive stores

Firm aims to capture growth opportunity in organised retail

Chennai-based men’s and boy’s wear clothing firm, Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd., (ITFL) plans to almost double the number of exclusive brand outlets (EBO) to 400 by FY25, said Charath Narsimhan, MD and CEO.

“As a part of the longer-term plan to capture growth opportunity in the organised retail space, we are planning to take the number of EBOs to 400, most of them will be in tier-II and tier-III cities,” he said in an interview.

About 60% of the new outlets would be owned by franchisees and rest by the company. Hence, it does not require huge outgo of funds, he said.

Besides, ITFL is exploring the possibility of entering girl’s wear segment. During FY22, ITFL had posted a revenue of ₹336 crore against ₹213 crore. “The company would have done better, if not for the COVID-led lockdown in Q1 of FY22,” said Vidyuth Venkatesh Rajagopal, JMD.

ITFL has planned to achieve a turnover of ₹500 crore by March 25. This would be done by rapidly expanding the reach of boy’s-wear segment, brand building and brand positioning with new apparel offerings, increasing footprint across small towns, cities and geographies in India and enhancing and improving retail and online presence, among others, he added..

At the beginning of FY22, ITFL had decided to focus on the following areas for growing business viz. direct-to- consumer (D2C) retail, sustainability and expansion into hinterland.

“Despite all the challenges faced, we have made progress in all these areas. Our D2C (consisting of our own exclusive stores and webstore business) now accounts for almost 40% of our revenue and is well poised to reach 50% in the next few years,” said Venkatesh Rajagopal, executive director-chairman.