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Omnichannel eyewear vendor Lenskart plans to set up 8-10 satellite manufacturing units in the country to bring down the time of delivery of spectacles.
The eyewear company has evolved over the years from an online retailer to a chain of over 250 brick and mortar showrooms to become a omnichannel vendor.
With funding of about ₹720 crore over the past five years, the company is embarking on a major expansion, which will see the doubling of its offline eyewear store from 250 to 500 by this year-end and commissioning of its $10 million manufacturing base near Delhi. This will quadruple its manufacturing capability from 10,000 units to over 40,000 units per day.
Amit Chaudhary, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Lenskart, said: “while the new manufacturing unit, which will go on stream by March this year will enable us to expand, the proposed satellite centres, which entail an outlay of about $ 4 million, will cut short the delivery time.”
During his visit to Hyderabad, Chaudhary told BusinessLine , “The company has so far sold more than 7 million units both online and offline through the stores and is on course to a turnover of over ₹350 crore this fiscal. We are doubling revenue each passing year and expect to turn profitable by September 2017.”
Untapped potentialDuring the year, while we take up the number of stores to 350, we are scouting for locations to set up these satellite units, he said.
“Our objective is to focus on tier II and III towns where there is huge untapped potential. As we expand, we are looking at taking the number of outlets to over 1,000 over the next two to three years,” he said.
“As a part of the company's efforts to consolidate the business, we are also considering manufacturing of frames in India, which we are currently sourcing from manufacturing units in China. This will then enable us to take full control of the entire back-end of the spectacles,” he said.
“Backed by a team of over 300 technologists, we are using a number of innovative technologies which includes augmented reality to add to the convenience of the customers. Soon, we will be empowering store staff with iPads, which will add to the convenience of the sales force,” he said.
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