Bata eyes footcare market outside cities

Plans to open 70 mega stores every year for next five years.

Bata India, which plans to open 70 big-format stores every year for the next five years, plans to invest equally in metros and inTier-II and-III towns. The investment in each store is estimated to be Rs 50-60 lakh.

It recently opened a 4,400 sq ft store at Shipra Mall, Indirapuram, close to Delhi. It plans to open such big-format stores, spread over 4,000-7,000 sq ft, in the next four to five years. These will display accessories, handbags, stationery items, school bags, water bottles, lunch-boxes and shoe-care and foot-care products.

 

Managing Director Marcelo Villagran said: “We are targeting the entire family for selling shoes as well as foot- and shoe-care products. We will continue to give stylish, yet comfortable and durable, footwear at affordable prices to our customers.”

The new outlets will also store global brands like Power, Weinbrenner and NorthStar; Marieclaire, exclusively for women; and Bubblegummers for children. Bata has over 1,200 stores in India and opened 82 in 2010 alone. Villagran said: “We will focus on improving our shoe designs for youths and women. We aim to provide a vast variety, with as much as 1,500 designs at one stop, to be changed every three months. Our confidence arises from the fact that we have posted 59 per cent growth in net profit in the third quarter this year.”

Outside the cities
Kumar Nitesh, vice-president, operations and head (retail), said: “Our major focus would be in Tier-II and -III towns. Initially, our investment in small towns and cities was just 30 per cent of the total. Now, it will be 50 per cent. With per-capita income growing and consumer tastes evolving in these cities, we want to penetrate deeper into Lucknow, Coimbatore, Vijayawada, Bareilly, Varanasi, Bhopal and Tiruchi. These are big-profit centres for us, because they are still untapped.”

Manoj Chandra, vice-president, marketing and customer service, said: “We are considered a ‘mass brand’ and we are happy with that. We will continue to cater to everyone, across all socio-economic segments.”

Bata has five manufacturing units in India. When asked if the company would increase these, Villagran said, “We will increase the efficiency and procurement of the existing units. Also, we are looking at employing 12 staff members at each store.”

Bata India’s turnover was about Rs 1,200 crore last year and, with this expansion, the company expects to raise it to Rs 1,600 crore this financial year. Nitesh said, “Earlier, a small 2,000 sq ft Bata store used to generate Rs 2 crore a year. With these big stores with almost double the area, we project an increase of up to about Rs 6 crore a year.”