Retail chain Shoppers Stop today said it will invest Rs 250 crore in the next three years to open 15 more stores across the country.
"We will invest Rs 250 crore in the next three years to add another 15 stores. Each store would require an investment of Rs 12-15 crore," Vinay Bhatia, vice-president (marketing and loyalty), Shoppers Stop, said.
To a query on funding, he said, "A major chunk of the investment will come from internal accruals." Further, he added that the company has been able to decrease its operational cost by 30 per cent and is now focused on increasing its topline.
Bhatia also said the top management has resorted to 5-15 per cent pay cut as part of the company's cost-cutting measures.
"One of the reasons we are able to expand is that we have resorted to a lot of cost-cutting measures and have focused on increasing the topline," he said, adding that the company has increased its topline by 7 per cent to Rs 720 crore in the first half of the current fiscal.
Besides this, the company is also increasing its advertising and marketing budget with more focus on direct marketing. The company, which currently has around 28 stores spread across 12 cities is now looking to open stores in five smaller cities like Amritsar, Mangalore and Vijaywada.
The company has 2 million square feet under retail operations and with the addition of 15 more stores the total space would increase by 8 lakh square feet, Bhatia said.
