Woodland bets on the lure of the outdoors

The 25-year old brand digs its heels into sports equipment and gear, hopes to build a portfolio that caters to every niche in the category

For a while now Woodland has been wooing the millennials, slowly expanding its product range and increasing its presence on social media to communicate with the new generation. And one of the ways the brand believes it can wend its way into the mind of the new generation consumer is by focusing on the rapidly growing niche of sports and adventure equipment, clothes and accessories and creating a catalogue that offers custom-created products.

Woodland expects it can leverage its understanding of the Indian market as well as take advantage of its significant retail footprint to develop the niche into a more profitable line of business. But the big challenge is: being easily accessible and staying attractive as global sports supermarkets, niche retailers and suppliers step up their pursuit of the Indian millennial.

Woodland started out, not with the rugged boots that the brand is synonymous with today, but by selling a line of sports shoes, footwear and apparel in a newly liberalised Indian economy. It was making heavy duty winter boots for the erstwhile USSR, US and European countries and when it saw an opportunity, started selling a new line of boots best suited for Indian conditions. Even today over 20 per cent of its Rs 1,200 crore turnover comes from exports.

However, over the past two decades and more the brand has spread itself out—from shoes to apparel to sportswear and now to adventure gear and tools. The company says it is time to push the envelope further and take control of the burgeoning market for healthy living/adventure gear market.

Pushing the boundaries

“Outdoors has been on our minds for the last 25 years. At the time India was not very big on branded products. In footwear there was Bata which even today is a major player, we tried to sell via them but did not find success, so we launched Woodland here, we started with sports shoes though,” says managing director of Woodland, Harkirat Singh.

Moving ahead from just shoes, apparel and accessories, the company is planning to get into anything and everything that screams outdoors. From mountain bikes, kayaks, skateboards to skis, Woodland now wants to promote each and every type of niche adventure sports and outdoors activity. For the company at present almost 60 per cent of its revenue comes from shoes and 30 per cent from apparels, outdoors gear accounts for the rest. It has 600 company owned stores all over the country. “The outdoor customer group is increasing and more outdoor sports are being taken up. Sports equipment is becoming specialised. We have brought in mountain bikes, cycling gear, shoes everything. We are working on water sports, selling kayaks and clothing for people who dive,” Singh said.

From props to shelves

Interestingly all its categories except shoes, originally came about due to the company’s need to have props for photo shoots. “When we did a photo shoot for boots, there was a need for a backpack to complete the whole story. So we started making backpacks as well. It started out as props, then we started trying them out at a store, people liked it and then we started manufacturing a whole line of backpacks. Cycles, kayaks, are all an important part of that story, it was always part of the wish list,” Singh said.

The company now hopes that Woodland will make that shift from just being an outdoors shoes and apparel provider to a holistic outdoors brand. However Singh makes it clear that he is not in the market to compete with players such as Decathlon or Wildcraft or with specialised cycle brands.

“There are already big players in the market. We are not competing with them but creating a certain category. That is why we are starting from the top. The cycles are outsourced from Taiwan while the kayaks are being imported from US. We cannot compare with Decathlon as they are more into a hyper format. Ours is more niche and the main focus products are footwear and apparel,” Singh said.

From just 10 percent, the company hopes that 30 per cent of its sales would be from these new segments in two to three years. “Since we shifted from Canada, the business has grown pretty big and the whole subcontinent is doing very well’” Singh said. India is the number one market for the company although it does earn a significant sum from exports. 

The company has a full range for several outdoor games and it now plans to expand its range of water sports products with a series of products such as surfing board, kayaks and diving watches. Other associated products are in the pipeline as the company wants the brand to be present in every adventure/sport the consumer participates in. But the leap into being a full service provider from serving a small segment of the outdoors market is a big one.