Woodland expects sales to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels

Shobha Roy/

Kolkata, March 05 Footwear and apparel company, Woodland, is hopeful of bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels of sales in the next six months and is expecting 8-10 per cent growth in business in the second quarter of the next fiscal.

The company, which had posted sales of around ₹1,250 crore in FY-20, saw revenues dropping to ₹700 crore in FY-21. However, things are expected to be better this year and the company is hopeful of closing the current financial year at around ₹1,000 crore.

According to Harkirat Singh, MD, Aero Club (the owners of Woodland), sales were impacted during the last two years due to Covid-induced slowdown and restrictions on travel imposed in several places. However, with things opening up, sales are expected to pick up.

“We are a lifestyle and outdoor brand and we have products aimed at travel and also office wear. All of these were affected due to Covid as there were restrictions on travel and people were mostly working from home. But now with things improving we expect our sales to pick up,” Singh told BusinessLine.

Athleisure and comfort wear sales

With the pandemic keeping people confined in their homes, the company started focusing on developing athleisure, casual and comfort wear. Launched around two years back, the category currently accounts for nearly 10-15 per cent of the company’s total sales.

Woodland expects the share of athleisure and comfort wear to grow as an increasingly large number of youth prefer these products. The company expects the share of athleisure, casual and comfort wear to grow to around 20-25 per cent moving forward.

The share of online to its total sales, which was close to 10-12 per cent during the pre-pandemic period, has increased to nearly 30 per cent at present. The online trend will continue to stay, however, with offline stores reopening the company expects traction in retail stores as well.

The company, which currently has around 500 stores, had closed down nearly 50 stores which were “not doing so well”. But with things looking up, it is looking to add 20-25 stores in the next quarter.

“We normally (pre pandemic) used to open 30-40 stores every year but during pandemic it got bad so we restricted from opening new stores. We will go slow on this (opening new stores) for some time and may look at opening around 30 stores on the higher side,” he said.

The company is also expecting its international business to gain traction moving forward. It has presence in West Asia, Africa and also some South East Asian countries. Pre-pandemic international sales accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the company’s total business. It expects it to bounce back to similar levels during next fiscal.

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