Louis Philippe chases the affluent in tier 2 cities, to add upto 50 stores annually

Madura Garment’s premium menswearbrand Louis Philippe plans to add around 40-50 stores everyyear and would expand in the tier 2 cities targeting the

affluent class in the small places.

“We would add a minimum of 40 to 50 stores every year.That is our target for the next three years,” Louis PhilippeBrand Head Jacob John told PTI.

“Retail expansion has been one of the priority growthdriver of the company. Otherwise our growth was coming frommulti brand outlets and departmental stores like Shopper Stopetc,” he said, adding: “we are exploring new towns, not onlymetros but in tier 2 cities and newer places. These placeactually have potential”.

“There is an affluent class, we would reach thatsegment,” he said.

[caption id=“attachment_1357211” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The expansion in Louis Philippe retail stores would be a mix of company owned and operated (COO) stores and franchise owned and operated (FOO) stores.[/caption]

The expansion in Louis Philippe retail stores would be amix of company owned and operated (COO) stores and franchiseowned and operated (FOO) stores.“COO would be in flagship and niche places and restplaces would be FOO. We are looking out for a lot of franchiseactually. Ratio between COO and FOO would be around 30:70,“John said.

The company has a total number of 200 stores and 80 wereadded in the last two years only, he added.“We would have a turnover of over Rs 1,200 core by the

end of this financial year. The company is growing at a rateof 25 percent every year,” he added.

The company plans to increase its export from India,which is around five percent of its production.

“Right now we are exporting to the Middle East from hereand trying to get new markets,” John said.According to him, as a part of image makeover from simple

classic looking brand, meant for 30-35 year age group to abrand of all line category, Louis Philippe has launched itsproducts in many verticals.“We are trying to get customers between the age group of18-60 in our stores. We are there with a jeans and launchedsport causals for the young people under brand LP sports. We

launched LP footwear, which is doing extremely well,” headded.

The company has also launched India inspired designs asbandgala. Its Louis Philippe luxure, line of premium wear isalso doing well.“However Louis Philippe and LP Sports are the two enginedrivers,” John said.

PTI