Woodland weaves new strategy around apparel

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: In a strategic move, footwear and apparel brand Woodland has decided to shift focus from footwear to its apparel range. The new strategy will revolve around focusing on international styling and colours, medium pricing and additional advertising support for garments. Its apparel range includes jackets, T-shirts, sweat shirts and casual shirts.

The move comes in the wake of recession in the domestic footwear market and the success of Woodland’s winter range of apparel this season. Says Mr B D Nathani, vice-president, sales & marketing,‘‘Our winter range of jackets and sweaters were launched in international styles and colours as early as October this year, giving us an edge over competition. Also the realistic pricing has yielded positive results and we expect to end the year with garments contributing 30 per cent to overall sales. The focus on garments will also help strengthen our brand by not being dependent on one product line alone.’’

While the brand hopes to garner 30 per cent of sales turnover from apparel this year, against the usual 20 per cent, projections for next year are as high as 40 per cent of overall sales.

As part of its strategy to target the youth segment, Woodland is focussing on styles, colours and pricing. With the international mood being on bright colours, Woodland has replaced its earlier range of garments in earthy colours, with brighter colours like red, yellow and blue.

Realising that pricing was a major factor in inhibiting sales, Woodland has also replaced its earlier ‘MNC pricing’ with a more realistic pricing in sync with the buying power of its target audience, which is essentially the non-earning youth segment that is looking for stylish and value for money offerings. The jackets are now available in the price range of Rs 1,145 to 2,500 against the earlier price of Rs 2,000 to 4,000. Similarly, the T-shirts have been repriced at Rs 295-695 from Rs 395-995.

With the new focus, this year the adspend on apparel was hiked from Rs 50-60 lakh (of its Rs 3 crore budget) to Rs 1 crore. Next year it plans to spend almost half its ad budget on apparel. It will also launch the first TVC for its apparel range later this year.

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