Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, which runs brands such as Van Heusen and Allen Solly for Aditya Birla Fashion, has done away with its End-of-Season Sales (EOSS) and moved towards a seasons' calendar where it will offer fresh merchandise month-on-month. The company sees this as a strategy to offer customers the latest style every month.

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Speaking on the sidelines of the Retail Leadership Summit last week, Vishak Kumar, CEO of Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, said the company will offer customers new merchandise every month, giving them a reason to visit the store more often, thus having a positive impact on sales.

"EOSS started with the notion of a strong winter season followed by summer and vice versa, hence the concept of an end-of-season sale. As a result of this, the inventory cycle started building around one huge sale followed by clearing of old merchandise depriving consumers of fresh merchandise. We are saying we will create fresh merchandise every month. It's a process and will ensure there is no building up and building down of inventory," Kumar told CNBC-TV18.

The company is also looking at continuing its aggressive store expansion plan where it has been adding one store a day for the last couple of years. While the COVID-19 pandemic had slowed down store expansion over the fiscal, Madura has planned to open another 100 stores during the rest of this financial year (FY21) and continue its expansion plan of around 300-400 stores over the next year. Kumar said that the expansion will be across the country, including smaller towns and larger metros.

Sales, too, have been charting a recovery on the back of a strong wedding season in October-November 2020. With another wedding season on the anvil, the Madura Fashions expects strong business through the months of April-June. "Weddings have always been a large part of our business and will continue to be. Weddings today have well-defined occasions and our range of brands cater to each occasion there. For example, a customer would pick a Van Heusen suit for reception. So as weddings become more detailed, that will pick up again," Kumar said.

Aditya Birla Fashion and Lifestyle as a company, too, has been betting big on the ethnic and occasion wear segment. In the last two months, it has invested in two premium designer brands Sabyasachi (in January) and Tarun Tahiliani (In February) as part of its strategy to build an entire gamut of ethnic wear brands across product segments. Analysts, too, saw this as a positive strategy for the company as the premium and aspirational segments have very little competition, giving the company a lot of room to grow.

In addition, back-to-office and back-to-campus are also two categories that Madura Fashions expects demand to arise from as offices and colleges open up.

However, casual clothing will continue to drive growth thanks to the shift in casual wear over the past year due to the lockdown where people were confined to their homes, and working from home now becoming the new normal.

“Casual and athleisure is a segment that will continue to grow. We have brands in these segments that we will scale up. Denims as a category has also evolved beautifully. Activewear under the Louie Phillip brand is also growing well. Each brand has its own growth levers and we will continue to focus on these growth levers," Kumar added.

First Published:Mar 1, 2021 4:50 PM IST