Libas targets 30 pc annual growth, plans 250-300 stores in 2-3 years

Mumbai, Oct 23 (PTI) Libas, owned by Zivore Apparel Pvt Ltd, is targeting an annual growth of 30 per cent and plans to expand its offline presence to 250-300 stores over the next 2-3 years, a top company executive said.

Libas has 50–60 stores across 15–16 Tier-1 and metro cities. As part of the expansion strategy, the company aims to increase its stores to 250–300 in 2–3 years, focusing first on Tier-1/metros before penetrating deeper.

“We started with online business in 2022, and then ventured into Libas offline stores in 2021. At present, we have around 50-60 Libas offline stores, mostly in tier-one cities. Currently, we are in 15-16 cities; we are planning to scale up our offline presence to 250-300 stores in 2-3 years.

“We are mostly looking

at strengthening our presence in tier I and metro cities, after which we’ll pick up one or two states to go deeper,” Zivore Apparel founder and CEO Sidhant Keshwani told PTI.

Keshwani said the company is currently going deep into Uttar Pradesh.

“We already have Libas showrooms in Gorakhpur, Agra, and we are opening a store in Saharanpur in UP. We are also planning for other states like Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka for similar expansion. Currently, we are focusing on expanding mostly in the North and the South,” he said, adding that the company is planning an investment of around Rs 200 crore for the expansion of offline stores.

He said the company is planning to go for a Company-Owned, Company-Operated (COCO) business model for offline stores. “In the future, we are exploring the franchising model as well. But as of now, the vision is to have COCO stores unless something changes,” he added.

Talking about the funding for this expansion, he said, “We are still evaluating whether to raise this fund through a private equity round or to do an IPO. So, we are exploring a few models to infuse capital. It’s a mix of equity and debt that is going to help us scale up this expansion.”

Further, he said, the company wants to build Libas into a complete lifestyle brand offering multiple product categories.

“We want to launch multiple categories. We have recently launched artificial jewellery under Libas. We launched perfumes about three to four months back. So, over the next 2-3 years, the idea is how we can pivot into a complete lifestyle brand with an online, offline, complete omnichannel presence,” he added.

Talking about overseas business for Libas, Keshwani said, the brand is already present in countries including the US, UK, UAE and Australia through the online channel and has launched an e-commerce website for this purpose.

“Currently, we are scaling up our international business as these four countries have a large Indian diaspora, who are all digitally native, plus logistics are easy to manage… we are also exploring countries in Southeast Asia like Singapore and Malaysia.

“We feel countries in Asia have huge potential to grow. Even the entire Middle East has huge potential for our business. Our overseas business will be only through e-commerce as of now,” he said. PTI SM DRR