Homegrown footwear brand Inc.5 plans to hit 100 standalone, company-operated stores by April this fiscal. It is also targeting its future investments towards strengthening digital capabilities, integrating technology and AI across planning, sales visibility, and consumer insights, and enhancing omnichannel experience by making online and offline journeys seamless, Amin Virji, MD, Inc.5, told ETRetail.
As of today, the brand runs around 92 standalone stores across 46–47 cities in India. These are all our own company-operated stores.
“In the last three years, we have opened 35–38 stores. We plan to reach 120 stores by the end of the next fiscal year,” he stated.
“Our primary focus remains metros and tier 1 cities, where we still see significant potential; however, we are also foraying into tier 2 cities like Indore, Udaipur, Surat, Goa, and additional stores in Ahmedabad and Surat,” he explained.
The brand’s store strategy remains centred on malls as roughly 70–72 per cent of its stores are mall-based.
“Malls offer organic walk-ins and faster maturity timelines. High streets require more marketing and brand investment, so malls remain our preferred choice,” Virji explained.
The typical store footprint is around 1,150–1,200 sq.ft., and each store requires a CapEx of Rs 1.1– Rs 1.3 crore, depending on size and location.
Apart from this, the brand also has a presence in shop-in-shops (SIS) in large-format multibrand outlets (MBOs) like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, and Central.
According to Virji, the company currently has 240–242 shop-in-shop locations, which expand organically as its partner malls and retailers open new outlets.
“We typically add 10–20 new SIS annually,” he added.
At present, the brand is more concentrated in the West, followed by the South, North, and East.
“West + South contribute around 55–60 per cent of total revenue. The remaining North and East together make up the balance, split equally,” he asserted.
At present, 20 per cent of the total revenue of the brand is contributed by online channels, including its D2C website and marketplaces, and the remaining 80 per cent comes from offline channels.
“We offer about 3,000–3,500 SKUs online, including marketplace-specific lines, while offline SKUs per store are in the 1,100–1,200 range,” he said.
“At present, women’s footwear contributes around 75 per cent, while the remaining 25 per cent comes from men’s footwear and third-party brands,” he further added.
On sourcing and manufacturing, Inc.5 relies on Indian contract manufacturers, supplying designs, materials, fittings, and components.
“We do not own manufacturing units,” Virji clarified. “We have always sourced from India, even before BIS mandates, because local production gives better control over timelines and quality.”
Currently, there are no plans for an owned manufacturing facility. Instead, the brand prefers to focus on backward integration, including engineering components and supporting partner factories, rather than setting up its own manufacturing plant.
Inc.5 has seen 15–17 per cent year-on-year growth. This fiscal, growth is expected to moderate to around 12 per cent, owing to a shift in warehouse operations and backend tech upgrades.
“We moved from our own warehouse to a 150,000 sq.ft. third-party 3PL facility, of which we currently use about 35 per cent. The transition impacted us temporarily, but the new setup supports faster scale,” he explained.
Last fiscal, the brand’s revenue stood at Rs 240 crore, with expectations of reaching Rs 270 crore this year. EBITDA is around 6 per cent, with management optimistic of improvement as scale increases.
