Bata India overhauls strategy amidst stiff competition, weak demand

New Delhi: Footwear retailer Bata India Ltd is embarking on a broad transformation plan to refresh its products, retail experience, and supply chain agility as it faces a softer market and tougher competition. The company has over 1,970 stores.

“The market has been the way it has been both here and outside—there is a need to reinvent all the time,” said Ashwani Windlass, chairman of Bata India, in an interview with Mint on Tuesday. “You should assume that markets are going to be soft due to both geopolitical and macro conditions.”

Gunjan Shah, managing director and chief executive officer of Bata India, said the company is implementing changes across various other touch points, such as marketing, retail, technology and the entire supply chain.

The company will increase product launches for value-conscious shoppers who have been constrained from making new purchases due to high inflation.

“There is a lot more acceleration going forward on value-conscious consumers. While on the premium end, we continue to do well with Hush Puppies, Floats, as well as Bata Comfit—there is a segment of consumers, especially at the bottom and the middle of the pyramid, which is obviously facing a certain amount of stress because of inflation over the last few years,” he said.

For the June quarter, Bata India’s consolidated net profit plunged 70% year-on-year to ₹52 crore, down from ₹174 crore a year ago, due to higher expenses and weak consumer demand. Meanwhile, the company’s revenue from operations dipped slightly to ₹941.85 crore for the quarter, compared to ₹944.63 crore in the year-ago period.

Changing strategy

Shah said the company is implementing changes across multiple areas, including marketing, technology, and the supply chain.

“One is the product piece, the second one is on retail, then brand and also efficiencies and capabilities. We have also, therefore, set up capability centres for product design. We are making our inventory system extremely agile and ensuring we are fast to the market,” said Shah.

On the retail side, there is a large project, the Zero Base Merchandising Project, which has been scaled to almost 200 stores. The objective is to make the stores more inviting, clutter-free, and comfortable for consumers to spend more time in—the more they try, the more they buy, he added.

Bata India’s performance was lacklustre in fiscal 2025. Revenue from operations remained flat in FY25, while profit for the year grew 26.3% to ₹328 crore. The company witnessed sluggish demand that carried forward from the previous year, though consumer sentiments saw early improvement through the second quarter. The company’s annual report for fiscal 2025 said that overall discretionary consumer spending remained subdued, further “accentuated due to the elections and extreme heatwave”. Premium products saw bouts of healthy demand driven by festival, wedding, and winter sales.

In comparison, rival Metro Brands reported a 6.24% jump in FY25 revenue to ₹2,449 crore.

The company is also emphasizing its popular ‘Floats’ brand, which closed FY25 at ₹100 crore and is expected to become a ₹800 crore to ₹1,000 crore brand within five years. Bata is also planning to accelerate e-commerce’s contribution to 20% of the company’s turnover in the medium term. “It’s basically low double digits right now. For the last three years, it’s been the fastest-growing business. In the next two to three years, it should be about 20% of our turnover,” said Shah.

Shah said the company will maintain its annual store opening guidance of about 100 to 150 stores per year. Bata operates both franchise and company-owned stores. “We do about ₹100 to ₹120 crore of capex every year. So it won’t be very different, but a large part of it is going into stores (70-80%), and the rest of it goes into product design and supply chain. A lot of this is redesigning the stores, the right kind of merchandise, the way you navigate in the stores, etc,” he added.

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