After getting hard in the last two years due to the pandemic, the apparel retail industry has witnessed a rebound, with revenues higher than pre-pandemic levels.
“ Revenues have gone up by 20 per cent over the pre-pandemic levels. It is going to continue this year with an expected growth of 20 per cent this financial year,” Charath Narasimhan, Managing Director of Indian Terrain Fashions , told Business Line. He was in Hyderabad in connection with opening of two more stores of Indian Terrain, taking the total to 14 in the city.
He said the pent up demand coupled with back-to-back wedding seasons and the first full-fledged academic year post the pandemic are driving the sales. The push towards return-to-work was also helping. Though several retail stores had to be shut down during the pandemic for want of business, the industry also seen expansion of store network into smaller cities, tapping the opportunity.
“We ourselves had closed about 25 outlets during the pandemic but opened about 70 stores in different cities, taking the total to 210 stores,” he said. The Chennai-based company is planning to open 25-30 more stores in the next six months.
“We have closed the last financial year with a revenue of ₹343 crore (as against ₹224 crore in the previous year). We are expecting a healthy growth of 20 per cent in revenue,” he said, adding that people were coming back even stronger into the store because they missed the experience.
New buying trends
He, however, said that the new generation of buyers were preferring to buy clothes online. “We have opened an online window to cater to this new opportunity. We are going to tap our retail store network to support the e-commerce sales,” he said.
Asked whether the company is planning to tap the export opportunity, he said there was a huge demand in India itself to tap.