ITC's Wills Lifestyle hits a new sixer

ITC's Wills Lifestyle, which offers a complete lifestyle

wardrobe for premium consumer, is now aggressively spanning out from the Indian metros with the opening of six new retail stores across Amritsar, Guwahati, Nashik, Vizag, Bhopal and Mangalore. The company begins its rapid expansion strategy starting this festive season, focusing mainly on Tier I and II cities. The aim is to set up a nationwide chain of exclusive specialty stores.

The expansion will begin with the opening of stores across Vizag, Bhopal, Nasik, Amritsar, Guwahati and Mangalore among others. The brand will continue to open stores in cities where they are already present like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Coimbatore, Goa, Noida and Lucknow. Besides this, Wills Lifestyle will venture into new Tier II and III markets by opening stores in Kanpur, Mysore, Udaipur, Vijaywada and Gangtok. The stores will present a truly international and superior shopping experience to the customers.

"With improving consumer sentiments, we are planning profitable expansion for Wills Lifestyle across the markets. We plan to increase the Wills Lifestyle network to 80 stores in next three months, through a mix of more stores in existing markets and expanding the footprint in smaller markets through the franchising model,” says Atul Chand, Divisional Chief Executive, ITC's Lifestyle Retailing.

The brand is poised to grow at 25 per cent this year. Currently there are 65 Wills Lifestyle stores in 35 cities across the country which follows an international format for the store to provide a clearly differentiated and pleasurable shopping experience.