Mumbai, Aug 19: Terming “sluggish consumption” as “temporary”, leading shoemaker Bata expects a revival in coming quarters, helped by festive season demand and retail expansion, according to its India Managing Director and CEO Gunjan Shah.The company expects e-commerce, which is now a “profitable and viable business, to be its growth driver as it has been expanding online sales through its portal and channel partners.
Besides, Bata as part of its strategy to attract new generation buyers is also investing in store renovations to become more appealing and trendy and in new relevant products with affordable propositions to increase its play further. Young buyers account for around 40 per cent of its transactions.
Moreover, it would also expand its apparel range to 200-plus stores from 70 stores at present. It will also add 13 exclusive outlets of its athleisure Brand Power’ to take the total count to 15 by the end of 2024, said Shah.
The company is also investing in technology transformation on automation in terms of inventory management, which will leverage better productivity, he said.
Bata earlier this month reported a 1.4 per cent decline in its consolidated revenue from operations to Rs 944.63 crore for the June quarter and expected a better performance in the second half of this fiscal.
When asked about the outlook, acknowledging a slowdown, Shah said.: “Yes, in the near term, we have seen some sluggish consumption and therefore impact on top-line growth.”
However, he also added the company is continuing its “efforts, investments and various thrust areas and initiatives” hoping this phase to be “temporary” in nature.
“We should look forward to even in the near term, with the festive season coming up, we should see a bounce back from a consumption point of view,” he added.
Bata India Chairman Ashwani Windlass also said there was “some softness in the lower and mid-end of the market”. This was due to factors such as general elections and heat waves.