Shoppers Stop bets on omni-channel strategy to grow biz

Brick and mortar retailer Shoppers Stop is betting big on an omni-channel retail strategy -- a combination of physical stores and online site -- to grow its business and aims to be completely debt-free by the end of this fiscal.

The company, which exited non-core businesses last year by selling its stakes in Hypercity Retail, Timezone Entertainment Pvt Ltd and Nuance Group (India) Pvt Ltd -- its duty-free airport retailing joint venture -- said it will make focused and substantial investments to embrace new technologies and infrastructure for the omni-channel.

"We believe that these exits (divestment) will serve in giving us the eagle eye focus required to significantly scale-up our core-businesses while also dramatically change our balance sheet and thereby increase shareholder value. We aim to be completely debt-free by financial year 2018-19," Shopper Stop said in annual report for 2017-18.

It further said: "This year, the company shall focus on strengthening its e-commerce presence to build on the investments made over the last three years to drive more than 100 per cent sales growth, and to create seamless experiences across online and offline in order to drive digitally influenced store sales, as well as adoption of digital channels by store customers and on leveraging its partnership with Amazon."
Elaborating on its offline expansion plans, Shoppers Stop said: "We plan to open 4-6 department stores and 8-10 beauty stores each year for the next 3 years to reach a wider and broader footprint. Where our physical stores are not present, our online shopping site will give customers the joy of shopping at a single click. Our robust investment in omni-channel will continue steadfastly."