Woodland to foray into kidswear

Footwear and casuals major Woodland is making a foray into the junior and kidswear segment as it looks at apparels business to contribute half of its total sales in India.

Woodland, one of the major players in the casual footwear category, is also venturing into large format retailing to promote its apparels business, with plans to open around six-seven such stores in 2009.

"We have a full-range of casual and outdoor apparels range including jackets, shirts, t-shirts, denim, bottomwear and pull-overs in menswear under our own brand name and we are now venturing into junior and kidswear with the entire range," Woodland Managing Director Harkirat Singh told PTI.

Apparels currently contribute to around 35 per cent of the company's annual turnover and the aim now is to take the figure up to 50 per cent by 2010-11 fiscal-end, he said. However, he declined to disclose the company's sales turnover.

"We believe there is more potential in the apparels segment," Singh said.

The company would be also incorporating more ranges, in both menswear and the soon-to-come juniorwear segments, beyond the currently available summer and winter ranges, Singh added.

Woodland is also venturing into large format retailing as a means of pushing apparels sales, though exclusive apparel stores are not yet on the anvil.

"We have currently 230 exclusive company-owned stores across India and each store is on average of around 1,500 square feet in size. We now intend to set up larger format stores of around 5,000 square feet area where apparels would have a separate section and footwears would be displayed separately," he said.

He, however, said that the company is giving a thought to setting up exclusive apparel outlets.