The Reliance group, through its retail arm ?Reliance Foot Print?, is all set to foray into the Rs 15,000-crore domestic footwear market, which is now dominated by Bata India (Rs 900 crore) and others like Liberty, Reebok, Action, Adidas, etc in the organised sector.
The company plans to open 100 outlets and corner 12% of the market with Rs 3,000 crore business from hyper/mini-hyper markets (Rs 1,700 crore), exclusive speciality stores (Rs 1250 crore) and ?Fresh? stores (Rs 50 crore), by 2011.
Reliance Foot Print plans to supply ?a shoe for every footprint’. The company, which has been experimenting with footwear retailing at its Ahmedabad hypermarket, is opening two speciality family stores next month in Hyderabad and Bangalore, G Sankar, chief executive-footwear, told FE on the sidelines of the International Footwear Conference here on Friday.
The plan is to open 45 stores in metros and 55 in Tier-II cities across the country. The stores will sell footwear, accessories and handbags for all occasions. The Reliance stores will have a collection of 40 national and international brands. Almost 25% of that would comprise private labels. Reliance will source from footwear manufacturers and ?we will also have exclusive producers for a Reliance brand”, Sankar said.
According to him, the organised footwear segment is growing at 35-40% per year. Men’s footwear accounts for 50 % of the organised retail. Ladies and kids footwear are largely untapped.