Brand Factory chalks out retail expansion with focus on small towns

Brand Factory is looking at retail expansion with focus on smaller towns. Suresh Sadhwani, Business Head of Brand Factory says the retail chain, part of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group, is set to open 40 new stores to touch the 100-store mark over the next 8-10 months, the company will add 40-50 new stores each year until it gets to 200.

Brand Factory has been in existence for a decade and has 60 outlets currently, which means on average, it opened six new stores every year. The pace, which picked up to 10-15 new stores over the last year, is set to rise. According to Ankur Bisen, Senior VP at Technopak the brand operates in a space over which it has a clear dominance, considering individual factory outlets are the only competition in the fashion discounting market Advisors Brand Factory’s free shopping weekend is a promotional event where the company offers customers steep discounts and gives them free merchandise, gift vouchers or cash back in its mobile wallet.

This year, the discount chain’s free shopping festival was held across the country between 22 and 26 November, and did business worth nearly Rs450 crore on a gross value basis.

In 2016-17, Brand Factory clocked Rs 1, 045 crore in sales. The unit is the second-highest revenue earner in Future Group’s Future Lifestyle Fashions division, which includes other fashion chains like Central and Planet Sports. The company expects revenue contribution from the footwear category to grow much faster than the rest. It stocks products across categories ranging from apparel to sportswear and accessories. A majority of its revenue comes from sales of men’s apparel, followed by apparel for women and children. Footwear currently accounts for 4 per cent of the retailer’s total sales and is expected to double over the next two years.