Indian Terrain steps into footwear

Indian Terrain, the maker of the eponymous brand of men’s clothing has launched a footwear range to complement its smart casual range of apparel. This will add to its portfolio of clothing, belts, wallets, knitwear, denims and jackets that the brand has on offer today.

Venky Rajgopal, Chairman, Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd, says the footwear will complement its style of sportswear (in American brand parlance, smart casuals in India) that has put the brand among the top-selling in department stores such as Lifestyle and Central.

“The range has been carefully designed to match our styles. We will launch in our top 30 stores with 10 styles, each in three to four colours,” said Rajgopal. Each store will have high resolution tablets of the shoe range, so if a customer wants a particular model in a different colour, it can be despatched from the warehouse. Priced in the band ₹2,999 – ₹5,999, the brand has invested ₹8 crore in design and inventory of footwear.

Indian Terrain sees a ₹100 crore opportunity in footwear in the next few years. Its boys range too is growing at a smart tick. Launched last year, it registered sales of ₹4 crore in the last FY and expects to finish this year at ₹20 crore.

Indian Terrain is sold at over 1,500 counters in the country, 120 of them exclusive stores, 180 department stores and the rest multi-brand outlets. The brand has seen 16 per cent same-store growth in chains such as Lifestyle and Central and has emerged as the top-selling brand in these counters, besting other formal wear and smart casual brands.

“It’s a litmus test of how our brand is doing as it’s competing with so many brands under one roof and a customer is seeing all of the other brands and buying the proposition that we have for Indian Terrain,” said Rajgopal.

Jacob John, Dy CEO, Lifestyle, says the brand has a unique positioning, right assortment and is rightly priced for the young consumer. All this has seen it do well at its counters.

Rajgopal sees the robust brand growth coming from the subtle work that Indian Terrain has been doing around its brand identity as well its ad campaign featuring actor Randeep Hooda. Italian designer Mateo Zara, who advises Indian Terrain on design, helped the brand focus on identity and the emotional connect a brand needs to have with its origins.

“We started building the story and our distinct identity a year-and-a-half ago. That the product is global but was born in Madras, is our story. Our footwear too talks about old Madras leatherwear, the oldest patented leather making process; our denims have a tag which says Old Madras Denim Company. Slowly, in a subtle and stylish manner, this has become an anthem across the company.”

Last year, Indian Terrain withdrew its brand from e.comm as it found the rampant discounting impacting the brand and store sales. Now, it operates on a marketplace model selling only through Amazon and Myntra where products are shipped from its warehouses on a negotiated discount. Online sales in FY 16 were at 4 per cent.

The brand finished FY 16 on gross sales of ₹500 crore and expects to grow 20 per cent in FY 17. The ₹2 scrip was quoting at ₹144 on Oct 13 on the BSE.

“We’re proud that in the past decade we are perhaps the only single brand that has emerged out of South India which was born, grown and became national out of Chennai,” said Rajgopal.