Wildcraft lokos to clock Rs 1,000 crore in sales by FY20

Outdoor products firm Wildcraft is targeting doubling sales to Rs 1,000 crore in the next three years, a company official has said.

The Bengaluru-based firm will be investing around Rs 350 crore by 2020 for expansion and marketing.

"We have concrete plans of taking our business to Rs 1,000 crore in retail sales by 2019-20. We had retail sales of Rs 400 crore last year (fiscal year 2016-17). We are looking at an investment of Rs 350 crore," Wildcraft co-founder Gaurav Dublish told PTI here.

This fiscal year, the company is aiming to grow at 35-40% and plans to clock retail sales of Rs 550-600 crore.
Wildcraft, which makes backpacks, rucksacks, camping and hiking equipment, among others, entered the footwear and clothing segment two-and-a-half years back and the new segments are contributing significantly to sales.

"This year, we will be having two-third of our revenue coming from gear and one-third from clothing and footwear.

Within gear, 40-45% comes from backpack and the rest from technical products. By 2020, we are expecting 45% of our business to come from clothing and footwear, which will be spread equally," he said.

The company operates 160 stores across 66 cities in the country and will be adding 40 more each year.

"We have 160 stores at present, which will become 200 this year. By 2020, we are looking at 300-350 stores," he said adding that each store entails an investment of around Rs 35-40 lakh.

It is also planning to establish its presence in the townships with 5 lakh plus population in the next 18 months.

"We were earlier looking at 10 lakh plus township, in about 53-54 cities and we have presence in all of them. We are now taking it to 5 lakh plus township, which is 110 (cities).

In the next 18 months, we will get into those also," he said adding that 40% of its revenues come from the smaller cities.

Online contributes around 12.5% of the sales at present, while this year the company is expecting it to be slightly higher at 14-15%. Dublish said they would look to get aggressive in this space if the model shifts to profitability than discounting.

The company spends 5% of its business on marketing and for the next three years, it will be spending Rs 80-100 crore on the same.

The outdoor gear and apparel firm is also enhancing global presence and by FY'20 it expects exports to contribute around 10-15% of sales.

"In the Rs 1,000 crore retail sales plan, we expect to contribute 10-15%. We stepped out of India 18 months back and started in Middle East. We have started in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal. In Kathmandu, we have our own store and plan to open another one there. In February, we did our first tie-up in Europe. From the revenue side, 6-7% of our business comes from exports at present," he said.

It is targeting the tropical belt globally, over the next 3-5 years, since most of its product catalogue is meant for India but would look at more winter products if it enters Northern Europe.

"In upper Himalayas, you have temperature and condition, which is similar (to Northern Europe) but we have a limited winter catalogue and we are not very keen on expanding it significantly. If we go to the upper Europe, possibly we will increase that range," he said.

On inorganic growth, he said the company is not averse to it and would look at acquisitions if they are R&D-led or in some adjacencies of product lines.