Over the next two years, Lifestyle International — part of the Dubai-based Landmark Group — plans to open at least 25 stores in India, with at least 15-18 in the very first year, while revenue from its online channels is expected to touch 12% from the current 7%. Speaking about the growth drivers, Devarajan Iyer, executive director and CEO, tells Akanksha Nagar that its recently launched beauty brand Iksu will by next year contribute in double-digits to its beauty segment revenue. Excerpts:
Lifestyle recently entered the beauty segment with the launch of its first-ever beauty brand, Iksu. What is the long-term plan for this brand?
We have private labels across categories including apparel and footwear but beauty was one of the few categories that we were not present in. Under Iksu, we have makeup, cosmetics, and a bath and body range. The entry price point is `99 and the exit is `399. With this launch, we have covered most categories we want to be in.
The size of the beauty business is very large, but the supply chain is one of the major challenges. Most of our formulation is happening in Europe as we don’t have high-technology formulation houses in India. Another challenge is while we have large manufacturing setups in India, quality is something we are struggling to find and thus we have been forced to go to countries such as Italy and China. We would love it if Indian manufacturers can help us scale up this business. We are in talks with some Indian manufacturers and hope to close a deal in the next quarter. With Iksu, we were targeting double-digit revenue within the beauty segment; we’ve already hit around 5%. Once we are out of supply disruptions, we should be able to scale this significantly.
What sort of marketing push have you put behind the brand?
The biggest differentiator for us is our understanding of the consumer because we’ve been in this market (India) for the last 20 years and we have close to 8 million active consumers in our database. We have data points that help us analyse their behaviour and demands. While companies like L’Oreal will make products for everybody, we curate products as per the customer’s demand.
Lifestyle has 85 stores in India and Iksu will be present in all the stores. We plan to open at least another 15 to 18 stores in the next 12 months. The product is also available on our website and we will soon be looking at other third-party marketplaces, including Flipkart and Amazon.
How equipped is the company to offer an irresistible experience to online customers?
While online channels contribute 6-7% of our total revenue, we see that increasing as the online business is growing at 100%. In two-three years’ time, online will be 10-12%, or maybe even more. We are increasing investments in data and technology platforms. We are trying to completely mirror our offline stores online. We’re also progressively personalising such experiences.
So you are following a ‘house of brands’ strategy…
We don’t look at it as a private label versus other brands. We open our stores based on the catchment, and the kind of products needed in that catchment. Our product and brand assortment in a metro city and a smaller town are different, but broadly it’s a mix of brands.
We are growing in double digits and aim to continue the momentum. The growth drivers are our focus on tier-II, and III markets and growing our own e-commerce business. More than growing the online business, we want to enable our customers to adopt an omnichannel shopping habit. We are also coming up with a tier-II business model where the store’s look and feel, product assortment, everything will be different. The company introduced two such stores in Gajuwaka and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh in May. By the end of the fiscal, we should open eight to nine stores in these cities, and in the next two to three years, 25 to 30 stores across India.
Also read: Ginger by Lifestyle launches its new campaign #ImperfectlyPerfectRules