Woodland to invest ₹100 crore this fiscal

Shoe, apparel and adventure gear brand Woodland is planning to invest ₹100 crore this fiscal on expansion, diversification and manufacturing.

The company, which reported a revenue of over ₹1,200 crore last year from 500-plus stores, expects to cross ₹1,500-crore turnover this fiscal, said a top official.

“We are targeting a growth of 25-30 per cent this financial year over last year as we have plans to invest more than ₹100 crore on expansion, diversification and manufacturing. The number of stores would also go up by about 70 more during the fiscal,” Harkirat Singh, Managing Director of Woodland, said.

“The company has recently introduced sports/adventure gear for relatively less popular sports — boating, kayaking and fishing in the country. Soon, these products would be offered in select cities/stores where such sports thrive and in larger format stores where there is place to display such products,” Singh told BusinessLine .

Asked about the growing e-commerce business in the country and its impact on Woodland, he said initially it was seen as disruptive to traditional store-based sales. But now, it has settled on to a complementary business.

“The problem initially was with discounts offered by e-commerce sites. But this has been sorted out with leading players, and the discounts on sites and in stores have all been standardised. A 10th of the current business comes from online transactions,” he said.

The company’s domestic sales work out to about 75 per cent.

“The store chains we have set up in Hong Kong, Thailand and other markets have begun to gain in volumes,” he said.

In the current mix, shoes account for about 60 per cent of business, followed by garments (35 per cent) and other items.

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