ITC’s lifestyle retailing business is
targeting a 20% growth for its premium Wills
Lifestyle brand in 2009-10. Despite the current
economic slowdown, the apparel major has lined
up a slew of initiatives that include focusing
more on the product side, concentrating on
loyalty programmes in a big way, trying to
convert more people and increase the transaction
size. It is also working with people in ITC’s
hotel business to train its employees in
customer service.
While ITC never discloses the size of its
lifestyle retail business, the company’s
lifestyle retailing divisional CEO Atul Chand
told ET: “Being a premium brand, Wills Lifestyle
is less affected by the slowdown than our
mid-market brand like John Players. Already, we
have seen an improvement in sentiment in the
January-March quarter compared to the
October-December quarter. We hope to close
2008-09 with a 20% growth over 2007-08.” In
2007-08, the brand had registered a 25% growth
over the previous year.
According to Mr Chand, some areas have been
identified so that customers are encouraged to
come in and shop. On the product side, Wills
Lifestyle will now be offering a wider
assortment of ranges with a shorter product
lifecycle of 6-8 weeks, as opposed to 3-4 months
earlier, so that customers find differentiation,
newness and variety in the brand.
“We
will also be leveraging customer loyalty and
realigning marketing spends from above-the-line
to areas like direct marketing and in-store
promotion. We’ve always been strong on the
loyalty front, but now, we will be doing special
promotions and reaching out more often to our
loyalty client base,” said Mr Chand.
Wills Lifestyle will also focus on converting
more people and increasing the transaction size
through retail activation. Towards this end, it
is working with ITC hotels, which is training
employees in customer service.
“We
have already opened a Wills Lifestyle store in
ITC Maurya, Delhi. We are also looking at
exploring options in other hotel properties.
This is an effort at blending synergies with the
hotel team and gaining from each other’s
strengths,” said Mr Chand.
On
the cost front, Mr Chand added that Wills
Lifestyle has been successful in getting rental
revisions by as much as 30-40%, which will help
the bottomline. “We are also looking at revenue
sharing in new malls,” he said. On the expansion
front, Wills Lifestyle is targeting 10 new
stores in 2009-10. At present, it has 55 stores
in 30-odd cities.
