With a sound economy coupled with a buoyant customer sentiment in India, the British retail giant Marks & Spencer has opened six stores in the last 48 days, or one store every eight days, as against a total of seven in the last financial year, said Mohit Bhayana, Head of Retail, Marks & Spencer.

“We are really big on expansion. Next year, the expansion will be at least these many, if not more,” he told BusinessLine .

75th store launched

The company launched its 75th store in the country at Chennai on Tuesday. “Expansion has been our strategy. Though we exhibit western styling, we have understood that each market needs to have a tailored fit that means that if we go to a new city, we bring our own offering. Growth in both tier-one and tier-two cities have been equally good,” he said.

Marks & Spencer opened its first store in Mumbai two decades ago.

For the 2018 financial year, Marks & Spencer in India reported revenue of nearly ₹900 crore.

“We have been reporting an annual growth of nearly 10 per cent in the last four-five years, and expect to grow at the same rate this year too,” he said.

Strong macroeconomic factors coupled with robust demographics and Internet penetration will fuel growth of retail market. At present, nearly 10 per cent of the total retail segment is organised and this is projected to increase to 12-13 per cent by 2020, he said.

Through e-commerce websites such as Amazon, Flipkart, Jabong and Myntra, it reaches out to nearly 20,000 pin codes in 32 cities. Of the total sales, 90 per cent comes from physical format and 10 per cent online, he said.

The growth is across segments, including apparel, lingerie and swimwear. “We have a 2.5-million customer base and 20 million customers walk into the store every year,” he said.

Product pricing

Refuting claims that Marks & Spencer caters only to the affluent, he said the product pricing is quite attractive with men’s wear from ₹599; women from ₹999; kids from ₹499 and beauty products from ₹399. “We are attractive on price point, styling and availability of products both offline and online,” he said.

The company sources nearly 40 per cent of raw materials from the domestic market and the rest from China and the Far East, he added.

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