Planet Fashion plans 300 stores in three years

Planet Fashion, a multi-brand retail initiative of Madura Fashion & Lifestyle Retail, a part of the Aditya Birla Group, is looking to more than double its turnover to Rs 700 crore from Rs 300 crore now in next three years. It is also planning to add 300 more stores to its network during the period, along with a brand revamping exercise.

Rahul Jhamb, brand head – Planet Fashion, told dna, "We are in India for last 15 years and we know that the demography of India is changing more towards younger population. The idea was to refresh our logo and to refresh our brand identity that would connect well with the progressive Indian youth.

Planet Fashion launched its new logo on Wednesday which now has a new symbol to it. "We have retained red colour of the logo which brings out the masculinity part of our brand proposition and the style and fashion part is brought through an infinity symbol in the logo," Jhamb said.

The "exclusive menswear brand", which houses brands such as Louis Philippe, Allen Solly, Van Heusen and Peter England in the value segment, is focusing on Tier III and IV towns where most of the new stores would come up, he added.

It also has limited tie-up with Levi's for denim category, Monte Carlo for winterwear category and Jockey for innerwear category.

"We plan to add 300 more stores in next three years and through this, we would be entering about 200 new markets. We are typically looking these stores in tier III and IV towns, with population size of 1-2 lakh, through franchise. Our current turnover in net MRP (maximum retail price) or consumer value is Rs 300 crore which would go up to Rs 700 crore in the next three years," Jhamb said.

At present, there are 225 Planet Fashion stores in 176 towns. It has recorded a compounded annual growth rate of 17% in last 10 years.

According to Jhamb, the store size for tier III and IV towns would be in range of 1,500-3,000 sq ft and require an investment of about Rs 55-60 lakh per store. For tier II towns, the size format would be around 4,000-6,000 sq ft. "We do not have any significant investment here, since over 90% of these new stores would be through franchise," he said.

The company may own the remaining 25-30 stores which would be in tier II towns. The average investment for a store of a size of 4,000-6,000 sq ft would be around Rs 2,500-3,000 per sq ft, Jhamb said.

Planet Fashion, which is revamping its brand logo through four product-led propositions such as Suit-Ability, The Linen Life, Classic Must Haves and All-Day Easy, is also planning to launch a private label for the tier III and IV towns. "We have done a pilot launch in few stores for a private label called Ivy Boston. We will test it in next 6-8 months and based on consumer response, we will scale it up. The test launch happened just last month in 15-20 stores in tier III and IV markets and we will be doing a bigger test launch in September in about 70 stores. It wil take some time for us to figure out how well this brand will do for us.Depending on the response, we would decide on whether to go ahead with it," Jhamb said. He also said that the company will do all its marketing communication and branding campaigns around these four propositions.