Indiantelevision.com Team

(29 December 2007 3:00 pm)

BANGALORE: Chennai based textile and apparel retail chain SKC plans to increase its number of outlets to 13 within the next few months.

The chain has eight outlets at present in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Pune spread over 400,000 square feet, and has already commenced work on five more outlets which will open shortly.

"If things go right and as per plan, by the end of 2008, we should have around 20 outlets," says the Bangalore store manager Sanjay Bisani. SKC's outlet on JC Road in Bangalore – SKC Mall at around 125,000 square feet - is the largest store that the chain has. In Bangalore, the chain has two outlets. SKC claims that it had four million plus walk-ins last year.

The chain is targeting a turnover of Rs 10 billion by 2010. SKC had revenues of Rs 1.79 billion for the year ended March 2007. Ninety percent of SKC's revenues comes in from Indian brands of apparel and textiles while the balance is from its in house brands.

Chennai, with the maximum number of outlets, contributes to 50 per cent of the company's revenues. Bangalore accounts for around 20 per cent while the rest is shared between its other outlets.

SKC has been advertising in newspapers and over FM radio in the cities in which it is present in, besides magazines, outdoor bill boards and on bus stands. In Bangalore, SKC has had FTC arrangements with Big FM, Radio Mirchi and Radio One. It spends about Rs 50 million annually towards mass media communications and business promotion activities, according to SKC manager-marketing Seema Jain.

Chennai based ad agency One Point Size is SKC's creative agency. Media buying is done locally as well as through media buying agency MGP.