Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Go Fashion (India) Limited Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Gautam Saraogi, CEO, Go Fashion (India) Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah. Good evening, and warm welcome to everyone present on the call. Along with me, I have Mr. R. Mohan, our Chief Financial Officer and SGA, our investor relation advisors. I hope you have all received our investor deck by now. For those who have not, you can view them on the stock exchange and the company website. On our last call, we laid five clear principles and priorities for FY 2027. I want to spend a few minutes giving you a sense of where we stand on each of these one quarter in. Priority one was turning SSSG positive. This was our single most important commitment for the year, and I'm pleased to share that we have started FY 2027 on the right note. Same-store sales growth for our EBO channel turned positive this quarter at 0.6%, and same-cluster sales growth was at 1.2%.
This was the first positive SSSG in several quarters. It's still early to call this as a firm trend after just one quarter, but it's moving in the right direction we wanted, and it keeps us optimistic for the coming quarters. Priority two was to migrate to larger size stores. We continue to make progress here despite the quarter. During the quarter, we closed 66 stores in the catchments where we already have, or we are going to be opening a larger format store nearby. As a result, our total retail space reduced by 7,000 sq ft in this quarter, even as we continue to add larger stores elsewhere in the network. Based on our current review, we will continue this transaction over the rest of FY 2027. Larger stores can hold a full range and give customers a much better premium experience as far as shopping is concerned.
We are also continuing to upgrade the look and feel of our existing stores through the year. Our store expansion strategy will continue to remain calibrated and selective, with a clear focus on entering high potential locations across Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 cities. Over the next five years, we aim to significantly expand our footprint with potential to double the square feet deployed in the business. This new business strategy will lead to revenue maximization and cost optimization. Priority three, refreshing the product portfolio. We continue to refresh our product portfolio with new additions, and we will add new styles aimed at a younger trend-conscious customer. Over FY 2027, we plan to add 10-12 new refreshing products for our customers. Not just like extensions, but generally new format that will open up new purchase occasions and consumer cohorts.
Our aspiration is clear to be a definitive one-stop destination for women's bottom wear in India. We have onboarded Shraddha Kapoor as our brand ambassador from July. This is intended to strengthen the brand salience and bring us to a wider, younger audience. You'll see this reflected more visibly across our marketing and stores over the next coming months. The priority four was expanding our new pilot daily wear concept. We currently have 15 stores of the new daily wear concept. We remain committed to our target of scaling our daily wear stores to about 25 - 30 stores by the end of FY 2027. The unit economics continue to hold up well in the stores where we have gone live. Our priority five is LFS channel recovery. This is another area where we saw genuine progress.
Our LFS channel grew 2% on a year-on-year basis to INR 50 crore, a clear signal of returning to some sort of normalcy after a difficult FY 2026 that included operational disruptions with a key LFS partner. We continue to work closely with our LFS partners on assortment, placement, and sell-through to ensure channel contributes meaningful to the growth for the balance of the year. Across all five priorities, Q1 has given us an encouraging set of data points. Coming to financial performance, our revenue and gross margins remain stable compared to Q1 last year. I want to flag one specific item in the P&L this quarter, an exceptional expense of INR 6.5 crore relating to the write-off of capital expenditure on account of the store closures we did during the quarter. This is a direct consequence of network consolidation strategy and is a one-off item.
EBITDA before exceptional items stood at INR 67.4 crore, a 2% degrowth. The moderation was largely on account of incremental marketing investment we took during this quarter, including the brand ambassador partnership. Our advertising expense as a percentage of revenue stood at 2.3% for Q1 FY 2027, and we expect it to remain the same range between 2%-3% in FY 2027. Full price sales for the quarter stood at a strong 94%, and our average selling price came to about INR 863. Our working capital days stood at 139 days, with inventory days at 100 days. We believe there is room to optimize this further by a few more days, which will contribute to a strong balance sheet and support long-term sustainable growth.
To sum up, quarter one FY 2027 was a quarter where we began to see some progress against each of the five priorities we set out for the year. SSSG turned positive. Our store transition, our product and brand initiatives, including getting a brand ambassador partnership underway, our daily wear concept, and LFS showing some genuine signs of recovery. We are very conscious that one quarter does not make a trend, and we intend to stay disciplined and measured as we build on this momentum through the rest of the year. We are encouraged by the direction, and we remain confident that in the underlying strength of the business, Go Colors continues to be one of the most recognized and trusted names in women's bottom wear in India, operating in a category where organized players still have a long runway ahead, given low penetration levels that persist.
With this, I would like to hand over the call to our CFO, Mr. R. Mohan, for update on quarter one FY 2027 results and financials. Thank you.
Thank you, Gautam, and good evening, everyone. I'll give you the financial highlights for Q4 FY 2026. Revenue stood at INR 223 crore, flat year-over-year. Gross profit stood at INR 140 crore, with a GP margin of 62.9%. EBITDA before exceptional expense stood at INR 67 crore. EBITDA margin stood at 30.3%. PAT stood at INR 16 crore. ROCE and ROE, excluding Ind AS impact, stood at 10.8% and 7.9% respectively. Cash and cash equivalents stood at INR 202 crore as on June 30th, 2026. With this, now we'll open the floor for question and answers.
Thank you very much. Now we begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sameer Gupta from India Infoline. Please proceed.
Hi. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Gautam, you mentioned that the exercise to close a small store and open a larger one will continue over the rest of FY 2027. In this context, what kind of net retail area growth are you looking at for this particular year?
See, I think from an area deployed in the business, from a square feet deployed in the business on a year two basis, Sameer, we should add about 8%-10% of square feet space, that will be on a year two basis. To measure that on a quarterly basis will be tough. Even in this quarter, if you see actually 7,000 sq ft has reduced. On a year two basis, 12-month basis, I think 8%-10% should result in our square feet increase in the business.
Suffice to say that it will happen over the course of the year and back-ended.
Yeah. Correct.
Got it. Fair. On the same-store sales growth, I understand this quarter is 0.6%, but let's say you remove all the stores that have been closed over the past one year, this quarter including, and you also remove all the stores that you intend to close in the coming quarters, then what does this SSS number look like, and how has that number trended over the last few quarters?
This number, SSS, what we have reported, Sameer, this excludes the stores which have closed in Q1 because those stores would have closed over Q1, so we won't be able to compare them with Q1 last year. We have excluded the stores which have closed in Q1 out of the SSS calculation.
Yeah, the stores that you intend to close and have not yet been closed, those won’t be included, right?
No, those won’t be excluded. For us to exclude that, I’ve not checked that percentage, but in the number what we have reported, we have not excluded any future stores.
Got it. No, I understand that.
I’ve not done the calculation on, if you ask me. Yeah.
No worries. The other question is that, one would assume that if you were to remove all the smaller stores from the system, the SSSG then would look healthy. 0.6%, one, there could be a natural improvement that has happened over the quarters.
You're saying how do I attribute. I'll tell you. I understand why your question is. I'll tell you. The 0.6% could have many reasons. I'll tell you the three reasons which I think. A, it also can be because of a favorable base, maybe because Q1 last year was very weak, so this year is showing 0.6%. That is one possibility. The other possibility is that the smaller stores what we have closed over a period of time, some business of those stores would have moved to another stores, which could have improved the SCSG. The third reason could be also that Q1 in general saw better footfalls and demand compared to the earlier quarters. I think your question is right. It's very difficult to attribute the 0.6% to what is the reason why we have seen an improvement.
That is why in my commentary, I've very clearly said that this does not set a trend. We have to wait and watch how this positive SSSG unfolds over the next few quarters. Even as management, we can't get very excited looking at the 0.6% thinking that this is a new reality. We are also taking it with a pinch of salt saying that this can be a one quarterly trend, and we are wary of it. We are being very careful, and we will look to build on this and show positive SSSG in quarter two, quarter three. This definitely, the 0.6%, does not mean it's a trend.
I was actually asking the other thing. What I was basically saying is that even if we remove the stores which are small, I understand it's an improvement, but it's not a very exciting number, 0.6% SSSG. How are we able to confidently say that it's the small stores that are the problem?
No. Sameer, see, the 0.6% is a blended number of stores which are already small in the ecosystem, which today also are small in the ecosystem, and a combination of large stores. Even today we have 100 +. If I look at my larger stores SSSG today, they are much better than what my smaller stores SSSG are. If I take my SSSG only for stores which are greater than 700 sq ft, they are obviously much better than what it is for my smaller stores. That is the reason why we began this transition to begin with. That was the proof in the pudding for us.
This number.
The SCSG growth for 700 + sq ft for quarter one was in the range of 2.5%-3%.
The number of these stores which are 700 sq ft in the system would be 700+ sq ft ?
It would be more than 130 stores in the ecosystem.
Got it. Thanks. I'll come back in the queue.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Avinash Karumanchi from MOSL. Please proceed.
Good evening, sir. I just want to check how far through are we in this store closures currently. How many stores are we going to expect further closure in FY 2027?
Avinash, see, it's very difficult to give a guidance either on store openings or closures. It's very difficult to give a guidance because both are interlinked. When we are opening larger stores, we're also closing smaller stores. It all depends on the opportunity of the larger stores available as well. It's very difficult for me to bridge and say that how many stores we are going to close. I feel it's definitely not going to be as intense or higher number as what we have seen in the last few quarters. It will definitely be a much lower number. To give a number of stores guidance is very tough for me because it's directly linked with what large store opportunity we get during the year.
Got it. Just lapping upon Sameer's question. Last quarter you said that you are having somewhere around 250 odd stores which are doing 10% SSSG. Now you said these other larger format stores are doing only 2%-3% kind of SSSG. Is this a deceleration or am I looking at a different base altogether?
No. See, the statement what I made in the last call, I'll just have to go back and see why I made that statement. I'm not able to recollect it. To Sameer's specific question, if I take a blended average of all the bottom-wear stores which are greater than 700 sq ft, in quarter one we have given about 2.5%, 3%.
Okay.
The statement why I made in the last call in which context, I'll have to go back and just see it and maybe I can answer this question after the call through SGA, I can send the clarification.
Basically what we are trying to look at it is like, is there any kind of a difference in the SSSG between stores of vintage or stores of malls in the high streets? That's what we are trying to look at it. Is this true?
See, malls and high street, there's no real outlier between the two. As far as vintage is concerned, Avinash, when I checked the 700+ sq ft stores where they were delivering 2%, 3% I could see that trend even in the older 700 sq ft stores. See, we've had stores of 700 sq ft also historically taken. When I see it across vintage, it was showing similar trends.
Okay. Got it. The next question would be regarding the RM cost. What kind of inflation are you looking at at the current RM levels?
Right now we have seen inflation as far as fabric cost is concerned. We have seen it go up in the last few months because of the entire Middle East situation. It's caused a situation where RM prices have gone up. Right now we are not looking at price hikes, honestly. We will have to wait and watch. We are waiting. We are hopeful that these prices will stabilize and fall. Right now we are not taking a price hike. Having said that, these inflated RM prices could impact the gross margins in the coming quarter. It's difficult to quantify how much it will impact because we are also adding older inventory in the system. We are also adding newer inventory in the system. On a blended level, how much it's going to impact the GM, it's difficult to say.
As how much it's increased now, we feel that in the coming quarters it will stabilize and it will fall.
Okay.
Sorry, I mean.
Gross margin.
No, sorry. I just want to complete my last statement. The RM prices will stabilize and will fall, is what I'm saying, not the gross margin.
Okay. It's not about the gross margin impact. Could you quantify how much fabric cost increase have you seen?
From what we have seen, I think fabric costs have increased anywhere from 7%-10%, is what we've seen.
Okay. Understood, sir. I'll join the queue.
Thank you, Avinash.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreyansh Jain from Swan Investment. Please proceed.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, I have one question. Can you help us understand, say, what would be the SSSG for, say, stores which are more than three years old, stores which are less than three years old, and stores which are less than a year old? If you can break that up into these three buckets, it will help us understand the SSSG trend, sir.
Yeah, actually, I'm not having that data right now with me handy. Once I have that data, because I'm not able to remember, it's not immediately, and I'm not remembering because of these three buckets what you just mentioned. I'll send it across to SGA.
Any sense you can give us, sir, on what the SSSG would be for our matured stores, if not these buckets, just the matured stores?
Yeah, I can give you a general idea. When I had a look at our SSSGs of different store sizes and all, I could see that even our older stores, which have opened in FY 2020 or FY 2019, even they are showing good positive growth. I think it was, for us, what we've seen, this positive SSSG for the stores which have been positive, it has been across all vintage and financial years. Now, how many stores and exact number I don't have, which I'll obviously send it through SGA. To your question, the answer is yes, we have seen the growth even in our vintage stores and older stores as well.
This growth would be what? Low single digits or mid to high single- digits, sir?
It varies. There are some stores which are like FY 2018, which are growing at 10%. There are some stores which have opened as early as FY 2024, also could have been in degrowth. It's a mixed bag. There's no direct correlation with vintage here. It also comes down and depends on how the mall or that high street is doing.
Got it. Sir, what is the inventory number at the end of Q1?
Inventory number at the end of Q1, I'll just tell you. Just give me one second. It is INR 245 crore. Including RM, it is INR 245 crore.
Got it. Just a last question. Can you help us understand the newer stores that you're going to open? What would be the turns there and the unit economics, inventory plus CapEx?
Very similar to the smaller stores. We've seen that the unit economics are very similar. Our larger stores obviously do a much better revenue number than our smaller stores. Payback period could range in that range of 15 - 20 months will be the payback period. The inventory turns in larger stores would be around, if I'm not wrong, about 45 - 60 days on sales. What do you call, your ROI, like I mentioned, would be anywhere from 15 - 20 months, roughly.
Got it. That helps. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Participants who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Siddharth from NAFA. Please proceed.
Hello, team there. My set of question is that, how is the new Everyday Wear concept stores performing? I would like to get some clue on that in terms of the average store size across, because from what I could see, the average store size that is disclosed on investor presentation has a broad range. If you look at the new Everyday Wear stores from what I could have my source citations from, it is in the range of 3,000 sq ft - 4,000 sq ft in average. I would just like to know how that cluster of new Everyday Wear is performing, and I would have my next set of questions based on that.
Thank you, [Sudhar]. S ee, actually in the new concept, in the Everyday Wear concept, our size requirement actually is 1,500 sq ft- 1,600 sq ft. In high street, sometimes we end up getting more space by virtue of availability because whatever store we have converted into everyday wear, in the same building, we have taken additional space. When we have taken additional space, some stores could have been in the range of 3,000 sq ft. Our requirement of size is actually anywhere starting from 1,500 sq ft going up to maybe 2,000 sq ft, not more. How are these stores doing? These stores are doing well. Currently, based on the size the stores are deployed, we are generating about INR 1,000 of sales per square feet per month.
All the stores, I would say out of the 15 stores operational today, 12 - 13 stores are already profitable and doing well. We have seen decent inventory turns also in this business. As a starting step, I think it is a good start, and I think it will strengthen in the coming quarters. I think in festive quarter we will get a fair idea of how these stores are doing. Right now the response has been very encouraging. INR 1,000 sales per square feet, and out of the 15 stores, about 12 stores are double-digit EBITDA positive.
Okay, understood. The next set of question would be, I would like to get some light on how your LFS spaces would pan out to be because there are some industry-wide issues that is being said relating to Reliance AZORTE is being pushing their own brand into that business that is affecting our LFS segment as well. Not conclusively saying it, that is some speculation that I have been going through about. I would just like to get some light on what the LFS long-term story is going to be, and how do you think it is going to pan out?
[Sudhar], I'll tell you, we are not present in AZORTE, we are present in Reliance Trends. Reliance Trends is a combination of external brands and private brands. Maybe what Reliance has done in the past is that they've converted their Reliance Trends store to AZORTE stores. When they convert that into AZORTE stores, all the external brand exits and private label brands of AZORTE takes over.
Correct.
For us too, it's difficult to visualize how many such conversions any of our LFS partners would be doing. Right now, the one thing I can tell you is that what supply chain disruptions we had with our LFS partners over Q3 and Q4 last year has normalized significantly, and that's also reflecting in our Q1 numbers. The one thing I won't be able to guide or speculate is if there are stores which are getting converted into a different format of theirs. That is very difficult for me to know. From a supply chain issues, disruption issue what we had with one of our key LFS partners over Q3 and Q4, to a very large extent, it's normalized in quarter one.
Okay. Understood. My last set of question would be that, considering the new stores that's being opened, and there's also going to be some inventory releases from the closed stores as well. If you could just give me a good light on what the inventory increase could be over guidance number for FY 2027, considering you're also opening new stores and the inventory is released from the closed ones as well.
Currently our inventory days is at about 100 days. I think by the end of the year, we'll be in the range of 90 - 100 days of inventory, is what I feel.
Okay.
See, this inventory is also carrying our daily wear concept. Right?
Correct.
This 90 - 100 days is actually including our daily wear concept. Our bottom wear inventory days is actually lower. All put together, I think at a company level, we'll be at around 90 - 100 days. Difficult to give an exact number, but we should be in that range.
Understood. Since you guys have a good level of cash, the entire spending is going to be financed through your internal accruals, right?
Yeah. We feel our operating cash flow will be strong enough to take care of all the CapEx.
Understood. Thank you and wish you all the best.
Thank you, [Sudhar].
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is on the line of Ankit Kanodia from Zen Nivesh Advisors. Please proceed.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is related to the footfalls. I'm sure you would be tracking footfalls and their conversion. I know for some reason you might not be able to share it in numbers, but any qualitative color, how it has been going, that would be very helpful. That is my first question.
Yeah. Ankit, I think at an overall level, see, we track footfalls by bill cuts. I think our footfalls we've not seen a drop in footfalls. We would've maybe seen a 1%-1.5% increase in footfalls on an overall basis compared to last year Q1. This, I'm talking from an EBO level.
Okay. Got it.
I would say it's very similar to what numbers we had. We've not seen drop in footfalls at all.
Got it. Coming to the SSSG thing, which has been mentioned multiple times. I just wanted to make this clear that in the last call you clearly said that if you add only the stores which have reported positive SSSG, they were about 275 stores, that SSSG comes to 10%-12%. That is the exact line
That is the exact one. Okay. Maybe I would have mentioned this. I will just clarify this point because I need to look at a set of data before I make another statement of that. I will clarify this through SGA. I've written this point, and I will definitely release a clarification note on this through SGA on this point.
Sure. My last question is, since we are increasingly looking at daily wears, do we have any plan to explore lingerie as well?
Definitely it is there in one of our contention list because lingerie and ladies' innerwear is a very important part of our everyday wear concept of women's what we have just launched. Our daily wear concept. We are evaluating it, and whenever there is an update on that, we will definitely pass on to everyone.
Thank you so much. That was all from my side, and all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments. Over to you, sir.
I would like to thank everyone for being part of this call. We hope we've answered your questions. We are undertaking a comprehensive transformation in our store format strategy, our product portfolio, our brand investments, and our new business initiatives. This transformation will take time to fully manifest into our financial numbers, but the early signs are encouraging. If you need any more information, please feel free to contact Mr. Deven Dhruva from SGA, our investor relation advisors. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Go Fashion (India) Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.