Lifestyle Stores making a ‘Splash’ across India

Lifestyle International has launched its second Lifestyle store in Delhi, its 22nd in the country. With this launch, Lifestyle now has four stores in the National Capital Region (NCR), the other three being in Rajouri Garden, Noida and Gurgaon.

Spread across three floors and covering a sprawling area of 70,000 sq. ft. the new Lifestyle Store offers a choice of more than 250 national and international brands across apparel, footwear and travel accessories, infant wear and infant basics, cosmetics and perfumes.

It also marks the debut of the international hi-street fashion brand ‘Splash’ in North India. The Splash store offers a combination of in-store elements, visual merchandizing and music which creates a dramatic retail environment where shoppers experience an extension of the brand’s hip, trendy personality. Shankar Suryanarayan, Chief Marketing Officer-Landmark Group, (India) exclaims, “It offers a wide collection of denims, sportswear, casuals, formals, and accessories for the fashion conscious young men and women.” Their in-house designed collections include favorites like Ms, Nexus, Retro, ZYNC and Friday-Kinyobi while Splash’s international portfolio comprises of world famous brands like European denim brand -- Lee, Bossini, Kappa, Louis Philippe and Benetton among others.

Though a new entrant Splash already enjoys a cult following in cities where it is present. “Moving forward, we plan to introduce it in other leading cities of India. Splash is already present in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and now in Delhi. We will be opening two new stores of Splash this year in Delhi and Pune,” says Suryanarayan.

 The brand which currently occupies an impressive retail space of 1.1 million sq. ft. across the country is on an aggressive expansion drive and is set to launch six new stores by the end of 2010-11. Suryanarayan says, “By the year end we will open stores in cities like Nagpur and Ludhiana. Tier-II cities too play an important role in our future plans and we are eyeing cities which offer growth prospects. Earlier this year, we opened stores in Mangalore, Kanpur and Jalandhar. By the end of 2012-13, we plan to open 45 Lifestyle stores across 22 cities.” At the moment, Lifestyle Stores are present across 13 cities.

Lifestyle International is a part of the $3.2 billion Dubai-based Landmark Group. It is the growth driver for the Group in India. It is on course to post its first profit in more than 10 years of operations. Apart from its flagship Lifestyle Store, the company also runs furniture and home supplies store Home Centre. Lifestyle posted a turnover of Rs 1,070 crores last fiscal and is looking at 60 per cent growth this year.

Women’s wear was the first category to pick up post the slowdown and continues to post the highest growth. The company has a significant private labels business, accounting for almost a quarter of revenues.