Landmark Group’s Lifestyle is on an expansion spree, to open 50 stores by 2027

Lifestyle, the premium fashion retail chain from Dubai-based Landmark Group, is planning to grow aggressively over the next 3-4 years. After steadily growing its business over the last two decades, the retail chain is unfolding a plan that will expand its presence in India and significantly grow its revenue.

Since its origin in India in 1999, Lifestyle has come up with 100 stores over the last 24 years. But now, its plans involve rapidly growing the store, increase online play and bump up its revenue, a top executive told Business Today.

According to Devarajan Iyer, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Lifestyle, it aims to increase its store count by 50 per cent by venturing into smaller towns. “We plan to open 50 new stores over the next 3-4 years and nearly 40 of them will come up in tier-II towns like Vijaywada, Bareilly or Patiala,” he said.

While Lifestyle has been positioned as a premium urban retail chain, a pilot project adopted by the management encouraged it to look beyond the metros. Currently, it has 100 stores across 48 cities, covering all the million-plus towns in the country. But its pilot, run in cities like Guntur and Patiala helped it change the strategy. Additionally, said Iyer, due to its online presence in cities other than the ones it has physical stores, consumers in smaller towns are now familiar with the brand - making it an opportunity time to expand in those markets.

While a typical Lifestyle store in a high street location in major metros may measure about 50,000 square-feet, the tier II stores will be “smaller, optimised format stores measuring about 25,000 sq.ft. We ran pilots in west, south and north. We now plan to come up with 50 new stores in short period of time”, said Iyer. Over the last three years, since Covid begun, Lifestyle has opened 35 stores, including 16 outlets in FY23.

Being an unlisted entity, Lifestyle does not divulge its financial numbers, but Iyer said the business has recorded 9-10 per cent same store CAGR growth between FY20 and FY23, while its overall business grew at 13-14 per cent CAGR (compound annual growth rate).

But now, with its expansion plan in place, he expects to register 14-16 per cent CAGR on its topline over the next few years. This would be backed by its e-commerce channel that is growing at over 40 per cent annual rate since COVID and consumers coming back to shop floor. According to him, nearly 98 per cent of the pre-COVID footfall is now back.

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