Good evening, and thank you all for joining us on the Shoppers Stop Q2 FY 2027 earnings conference call. Today we have with us the senior management represented by Mr. Kavindra Mishra, Customer Care Associate, Managing Director, and CEO. Mr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, Customer Care Associate and CFO. We will begin the call with the opening remark from the management, after which we will have the forum open for the interactive Q&A session. I must remind all that the discussion in today's earning call may include certain forward-looking statements and must be viewed, therefore, in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. Please restrict your questions to the quarter's performance and to the strategic questions only. Housekeeping questions can be dealt with separately with the IR team. I would now request Mr. Kavindra Mishra for the opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Deepali. Good evening all. I am joined with Biju and Mahesh, in addition to our colleagues from the finance team, Pankaj, who is our CFO, JP, and Rohit. We have uploaded the investor presentation on our corporate and stock exchange website. Let me start with talking about the current operating environment. The current operating and consumption environment, which started picking in Q1, sustained the momentum through Q2, and I am happy to share that the demand continues to remain strong. Both Raksha Bandhan and Onam saw good consumer traction, and I am happy to share that the run-up to Pujo in East and Dussehra in key markets has been significantly strong, and I would comment on this in detail.
Talking about the festive season, the start of the Pujo calendar for East market has been very good, and we are witnessing a healthy mid-teen like-for-like growth in our stores. Given the fact that we have a very strong base in East, these numbers are very encouraging. Similarly, the Dussehra calendar too has shown a strong upsurge with a mid-teen like-for-like growth. Turning to our quarter two performance, here are some of the key highlights. Given the background of festive calendar shift from Q2 last year to Q3 this year, I am pleased to report that the results for Q2 have been quite encouraging and demonstrate the execution of the Shoppers Stop 2.0 strategy beautifully.
While on a non-GAAP consol basis, our revenues grew by 7%, EBITDA grew by 56%, and as a result, we were able to turn around PAT from a loss of INR 7 crore in last year to a profit of INR 6 crore this year. This is GAAP also, PAT recorded a positive swing from INR 20 crore loss in last year to INR 3 crore profit this year. Let me talk about the individual verticals now. Starting with an update on the Departmental Store business. We opened four departmental stores during the quarter, Sindhu Bhavan in Ahmedabad, Jabalpur, Bailey Square in Patna and Jhansi, which means we opened in total six departmental stores in H1.
From our earlier guidance of gross store openings where we had mentioned that we will open between 9- 10 stores, we are looking at 12 stores openings this year, and in line with our strategy, these are upmarket stores with elevated designs, modern ambience, and premium assortment. We will be opening our seventh store in Pacific Mall in Jaipur, which is North India's largest mall, in next week on 23rd October. The like-for-like business for Departmental Stores grew by 2% this quarter with a total growth of 4%. Adjusted for the festive calendar shift because Pujo date shifted from September to October, the like-for-like growth was 6.5%.
Our consistent focus on premiumization and experiential retail continues to resonate strongly with consumers. Our customer entry grew by 1% for like-for-like stores and the overall growth of 7.7%. We had the highest ever additions to our First Citizen loyalty program, with 2.5 lakh new recruitments. The premium end of our loyalty program, which is our Black Card program, has reported the highest ever enrollment. We had 19,000 new recruitments and highest ever renewals of 21,000, which is a renewal rate of around 66%, demonstrating deep value proposition from a consumer perspective besides personalized service standards. The total loyalty membership base grew to 14.1 million.
The total contribution this quarter was 84% with a repeat rate of 68%. Noticeably, our numbers across the loyalty program metrics continue to grow. What was especially heartening for us was the fact that with the positioning change, we were also able to attract a new set of consumers, and 37% of our bills were made by consumers who came for the first time in our stores. With constant focus, the premium portfolio contribution in stores improved by 390 basis points, and they stand now at an all-time high of 73%. The ATV for the quarter has gone up by 9%, which now stands at INR 5,471, showing core operational strength.
Our Personal Shopper program, which is central to our experiential retail strategy, is now contributing 27% to our revenue, which is a growth of around 200 basis points versus last year. Sales generated through personal shoppers grew by 13%, with total sales reaching INR 349 crore for the quarter. In our quest for the premiumization and service experiences, we are resourcing the stores through more personal shoppers, and we see this contribution reaching to 30% of revenue by end of the year. As a part of our progression strategy, we have always talked about the five power categories. They continue to outperform within the departmental stores.
Watches grew 24% year-over-year, handbags grew by 16%, fragrances by 13%, footwear by 9%, and sunglasses by 8%. We are also seeing a very strong growth in fashion, and we believe that this augurs well for the coming festive. Now I will move on to the private brands business. Private brands continue to be a strategic key pillar for us in terms of offering differentiated ranges and covering the gap for a set of categories. We shall continue to focus on driving productivity and improving profitability through prioritization and rationalizing discounts. Despite reducing the number of brands and reducing the inventory by 26%, I am very happy to share that we have seen a significant uptick in the profitability of the private brands concept.
We had also announced a partnership with Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands on the STOP × Peter England Collab. It brings together two iconic names in Indian menswear to deliver exceptional quality, contemporary style, and greater value for our consumers. I am very happy to share that the initial results have been quite encouraging, and we expect the same to accelerate further. Our beauty business continues to deliver encouraging momentum, and here is an update of the same. The overall beauty business, including Global SS Beauty, delivered a revenue of INR 367 crore during the quarter, registering a healthy year-on-year growth of 18%, led by fragrances, which grew by 35%.
With consistent efforts and new initiatives, including MAC loyalty program and pushing exclusive services, Estée Lauder business grew by 4% like-for-like for the second consecutive quarter after a decline for the last four consecutive quarters. Our beauty distribution business continued its strong growth trajectory, generating revenue of INR 168 crore, which is equivalent to INR 270 crore of GMV with a stellar 59% growth year-on-year. We opened two boutiques in this quarter, and with this total, we now have 11 boutiques, four Armani, three NARS, two Shiseido, one Prada, and one Creed. We will continue to accelerate scale through ongoing capital allocation, which has generated healthy return on capital employed.
The performance underscores beauty as a strategic pillar for Shoppers Stop, aiming high growth through strategic partnerships, digital acceleration, and store expansion. Let me throw some light on new initiatives starting with INTUNE business. Our continuous commentary last year on INTUNE was that we need to stabilize the operations, improve the unit economics, and liquidate the old inventory before we start seeing the growth in business. I am happy to share that the execution of the business has started showing initial results. We recorded revenue of INR 72 crore in INTUNE with a festive adjusted like-for-like growth of 6%.
Just like as in Shoppers Stop, the start of Dussehra and the festive calendar has been very positive, and we are growing mid-teen in INTUNE as well. Relentless focus on inventory freshness through in-season clearance and online accessibility helped us in reducing inventory by INR 33 crore year-on-year. Business is currently operating at an inventory level of 16 weeks cover. We are confident of operating with similar discipline in coming months, driven by improved full price sell-throughs, global supply chains, and more frequent drops. Due to these controls, we are entering the festive with a high freshness in merchandise, and we believe Q3 will be a very strong quarter for us.
Our repeat customer business improved to 49%, while the ATV is improved by 6%, and the items per transaction were at 3.5. Given the fact that in Q1, our repeat customer mix was 47%, this quarter-on-quarter movement is a very good news for us. Led by improvement in INTUNE productivity and integration of ssbeauty.in into ss.com, we could reduce the EBITDA losses in new businesses by INR 8 crore in Q2 and INR 12 crore in H1. We expect the losses to reduce further in Q3 and Q4. We also believe that we will be able to share our expansion plans for INTUNE in our Q3 earnings call, something which has often been asked to us.
Moving on to the e-commerce business. Our investments and efforts over the last year on improving the UI/UX and integrating the site have started showing good results. We grew by 52% over Q2 last year. Interestingly, we are seeing the impact of progression online as well. Our average bills value grew by 9%, and power categories like watches led growth, reflecting the premium behavior of our consumers across both offline and online. On store expansion and financial discipline, we continued a prudent capital allocation strategy focused on enhancing returns and reinforcing balance sheet strength.
During the quarter, we opened seven stores, four departmental stores, two beauty boutiques, and one MAC shop-in-shop. The total inventory was optimized by INR 78 crore year-on-year. I would like to share how we are leveraging AI across the business. Over the past couple of years as an organization, we have been working a lot on both machine learning, large language models, and AI in various parts of our business. Within Shoppers Stop, we look at AI with two perspectives, revenue generation and cost. Under revenue generation, our focus is on personalization and targeting the consumer activation. We have just rolled out the Personal Shopper app version 2.0, which uses deep insights for enhancing the consumer experience. We have also rolled out the personalization of opening for consumers in the stores based on their shopping behavior.
We believe that as both these projects mature, they will be very meaningful in our consumer experience journey, as well as driving the like-for-like growth. Under the cost mitigation, our focus is on sharpening the back end systems and processes. Inventory planning and optimization through demand forecasting, which started with private brands, has now been extended to INTUNE as well. The efficiency being pushed will be seen over the next few quarters. Finally, let me reiterate our strategy going forward. We will continue to accelerate premiumization. We will continue to deepen our strategy by strengthening partnerships with leading brands and expanding our premium portfolio, launching new brands, and enhancing the premium shopping experience through new store openings and key renovations.
Building on the momentum in consumer walk-ins, we will continue to elevate the Shoppers Stop experience through innovation, GTMs, and aspirational brand positioning. We will continue to strengthen our footprints in premium malls and high-potential locations, leveraging our growing preference among leading mall developers and reinforcing our position as the departmental store of choice. We will continue to work and reduce the further losses in INTUNE in H2. Finally, beauty distribution is something which is a core target for us, and we will continue to expand the portfolio. We maintain our estimated revenue growth of mid-single or slightly higher LFL FY 2027 and healthy expansion of profitability as already witnessed in H1. With this, I would like to open the floor for an interesting Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Avi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. This is Avi Mehta from 360 ONE Capital. Sir, I just wanted to get your thoughts on one aspect. For the last few quarters, you've been on this journey of balance sheet health improvement. You've been more or less done or closer to the finish line, if I may say. Just wanted to get your thoughts, how do you see or what is required for us to up the ante on store addition, especially in, say, INTUNE and the departmental store? Your thoughts on how do you see it while you've increased from 9- 12. Is this something that can move to, say, 20, 30? And what is required for that to happen? That will be useful point number one. The second question, sir, that I also wanted to check with you is on the beauty side.
Now we're witnessing this question about online versus offline in the beauty segment. Your thoughts on what kind of is Because we started with a very strong kind of situation over here. The pace of growth, how do you see this panning over, say, the next three years? How large do you see your market share behaving? Those are the two questions you could answer. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Avi. Great questions. Let me start with the first, which is on the departmental store expansion thought process. As you rightly mentioned at the start, we had spoken about opening close to nine stores and now that number extended to 12. How we are looking at the departmental store business is because as we move into a more premiumization story, we need to ensure that there is certain size of the store, and a certain catchment of the store. When I say catchment, it doesn't mean that we only need to be in the Juhu's of the world. We just opened Jhansi and we opened Jabalpur, and both of them, the stores are premium and they are doing well.
Currently, as we speak, our sense is that the number of store openings is also a function of the malls and the locations. We are in the process of building a very healthy pipeline of the same. Our guidance would be around 10- 12 stores, of which we have mentioned our 12 stores this year. Similar number for the coming two or three years. If we are able to get more options based on the pipeline availability, we are very eager to do that, because what we are seeing is that clearly the concept is working well in terms of the differentiated positioning which we have and the way consumers are reacting to our product offering and service offering.
So we are quite bullish on it. It's a function of getting the right departmental store space and location. From our side, I think we are quite open to open more stores. It's a function of how we are able to close the thing. In terms of INTUNE, as I mentioned, last year, we were talking about getting the operational piece right, and I think as a team, even at the start of the year, we had said that we want to wait two or three quarters, see the performance, and then fix the operating pieces, fix the supply chain, fix the merchandising. Once those pieces are fixed, the unit economics is something which we have cracked, then we would go for the next set of expansion.
I think a very critical quarter for us is Q3 as we speak, and I would be able to answer your queries in a much stronger way and a more positive way that what is the expansion plan or how we are looking at INTUNE for FY 2028 and going forward. Right now, I think our focus is to just ensure that we deliver on the momentum which we have got right now. On the question of beauty, I think, as I mentioned, beauty is something where we are seeing strong accelerated growth. If I talk about beauty business as a retail business, as a distribution business. In retail, we are seeing the way stores are growing, we are seeing a growth there as well.
We are also very excited about the distribution business where we see that I think we are more or less growing by 50%, 55% year-on-year, and we will continue to grow in that segment going forward. If you look at our distribution, we are very strong in the premium end of play, and fragrances is something we are very strong and it is doing well. For us, ELCA, which was struggling for some period of time, has actually turned around and it has become positive. Again, we are talking to the business there and trying to develop on that piece as well. I would request Biju also to maybe speak about what he feels about and how he sees the distribution business in its current scenario.
Yeah, hi Avi. With regards to the distribution business, as you could see from the numbers, we have been able to reach to a strong base. Obviously, the company is still very young. In the last three and a half years, we have been able to grow quite strongly. Also the ability to work with partners that are, let us say, serious, long-term, and who believe in the Indian market. Together, we think that we should be able to continue this great momentum and the belief that international fraternity puts in this country as a big opportunity market. This is where we are working around.
Got it, sir. Sir, if I may just clarify one bit on the beauty side. Sir, do you think the path to better profitability may entail need for investment in working capital to better, as we use data, is that the way I should see this margin profile, or is this just an operating cost leverage kind of story?
Pankaj this side. As far as addition of portfolio and brands is concerned, yes, we might need infusion of some capital, and you would see in our cash flow statement that we have invested in the distribution business. As far as the retail business is concerned, it will be pretty much BAU. Any kind of investments required are self-funded. If you see the kind of optimization that we have done at our overall inventory levels, that working capital reduction is also helping us over there. So whatever growth that we are achieving right now, we expect to achieve that. If there is some requirement of capital, I would say that there are no constraints to it. We are geared up for that.
Got it. Very clear, sir. Thank you very much for taking this question. Thank you.
Thanks.
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 comes from the line of Avinash Karumanchi with Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Congratulations on good set of numbers. My question is regarding INTUNE. INTUNE has seen a couple of store closures this quarter. What are the learnings from these store closures? What is the commonality amongst these closures? Do we foresee any further closures as well?
Thanks, Avinash. I think if I talk about the store closures, one, yes, there are obviously operational learnings for us in terms of the spaces which we have chosen for the combination of locations and catchments. I think for us, the mall is especially something which because of the throughputs work really well. The two spaces where we have closed are primarily high street, and this is something which we are learning on. On the other hand, we also have opened two stores of INTUNE, but I think that's a small number.
What we see is that as the brand matures over a period of time, we will get that strength in the high streets as well. While malls are doing well for us, I think high street is something which we are working on driving through both marketing and repeat customers. I think that the data which we shared with you in my speech that 49% of my consumers are coming back again and buying is a very healthy number. I think as we build that repetitive consumer behavior, I think we will be able to drive both high streets and mall spaces stronger.
Okay, got it. Can you speak something on the back end on the supply chain changes that you have done for the INTUNE, because of which you'll be expecting a better performance going forward?
Avinash, the back-end changes have happened at three fronts. One in terms of getting the supplier base right, working with more reliable suppliers to ensure that your OTIF becomes better. I think that is one of the key things which we wanted to drive to ensure that the product is there on time when it is required. The second thing is on the automation. Two years back, we launched 1BT within Shoppers Stop private brands, and we saw a very good positive impact there. This has now got implemented in INTUNE, and that is what I was saying, that is something which we will keep on driving there. I think the third is we wanted to have more frequent drops because the focus on freshness is super important in a category like this where, at such a nascent stage, 49% of the people are coming back and shopping.
I think that is other thing which we are trying to drive. Vendor base, ensuring that the automation takes care of the deliveries, and focus on freshness, which means more drops. These are the three fundamental things which we have driven to ensure that INTUNE productivity. Finally, I think the other project which we are doing right now is to ensure that we are able to reduce the lag from design to floor, whether it is taking bets on greige fabric to ensure that we are able to get the output faster. I think there is another project which we are working on this, but that is something which is WIP. The other things which I have told you have already been implemented over the past few quarters, and we are now seeing the results of that.
Just double tapping on this one. How frequently are the launches currently? Because if we speak of one of the competitor who is doing well, every fortnight the entire store will be with the newer products, the product catalog wise. How frequent is it, the similar number for this?
We are ensuring that right now we have moved to a weekly updation of the merchandise. Obviously we are not doing the entire store, but at least 100, 250 options or lines, as we call them, are dropping into the stores every week.
Got it, sir. Lastly, is there any RM pressure in the INTUNE private labels?
Sorry, what pressure?
Gross margin, raw material cost pressure, and have you taken any price hikes to offset that?
We do not see that pressure right now with INTUNE. We have not taken a price hike, but I think in our mind, we were artificially having a ceiling of INR 999. When we started testing out this last year, or at the start of this year with a line of INR 1,299, we realized that both the ROAS, which is the return on sales, as well as the throughputs, which is the sell-throughs, are very high. We are actually building on a nicer product, which is not necessarily a price hike, but a better product, and testing out prices of INR 1,299, INR 1,499, and we are seeing very good success there. To answer you, no pressure on the margins as of now, and we are testing, we are also seeing a higher ASP doing well for us.
Got it, sir. Secondly, regarding the departmental stores. You have raised the guidance on the departmental store additions. Wouldn't it be a challenge finding such big areas across the country? Whether these stores are going to be in the existing cities or are you tapping newer cities for this expansion?
Okay. That's why I think when Avi asked this question about, can we open 20 stores or maybe higher stores? The answer was that we are trying to build a healthy pipeline. Over the next three years, we have a visibility of at least 12 stores every year in terms of addition, but we keep on doing. I think two or three things are happening, Avinash. One is our teams are working on building the pipeline. The second is, see a lot of departmental stores which got signed in early 2000s are all coming for renewals. Those might have been the places where we currently didn't have a store. But given the fact that we are the only departmental store operator who is now working on premiumization and attracting that kind of consumer which the premium malls want, we will also get spaces from our competitors.
We did one in Pune, where we opened a store now, which was with somebody else, and we got that. I think that will keep on happening. Our size is something which we have to have because size is important. As I mentioned, if you premiumize, you should have nicer walking aisle spaces. You need to give respect to the brand in terms of cases they want. So we'll keep on working on this. When I say we are opening stores, we are looking at a combination of metros, tier one a nd tier two. In fact, the last two stores which we opened were in Jhansi and Jabalpur, and the next one which we are opening is in Jaipur, where we already have three stores.
We'll always keep on having a mix of newer cities and more stores in the same city, and I think the response has been encouraging. We know for sure, and we are seeing this interaction with all the leading developers now, that we are the partner of choice for them. I think this whole repositioning and Shoppers Stop 2.0 has helped us to achieve that. As you go up, there are very few operators who work on that kind of a thing, and I think that's where we are seeing a positivity there, Avinash.
Okay. Got it. That answers a lot of them. One last question, if I may ask. We are most likely to be debt-free by the end of this year.
Yeah.
With the cash that you will be generating, what is the plan to deploy that? Will it be adding more stores or how are you looking at it?
Avinash, good question. While we achieve our balance sheet robustness that we have set for ourselves, the cash that is generated and all our internal accruals will be used for expansion in a healthy, profitable manner. We just mentioned about 12 stores per annum. At the same time, we also discussed how INTUNE is on course of profitability. There will be some investments required wherever we get right opportunity for INTUNE as well. We will grow our distribution business also very rapidly. You have seen the kind of CAGRs that we have achieved on the distribution business. All these areas of profitable growth, they will need some kind of capital investment, and we will have internal accruals as well as the balance sheet robustness to fund for that growth.
Got it. Thank you. I will join the queue.
Okay. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Abhiram Mandowara with Equirus. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My first question is in terms of the distribution GSSBB. Since it is a three-year contract with all the brands, what is the kind of stickiness we see going forward with the business since there are a lot of competitors out there like Nykaa, Reliance, etc . What makes those brands stay sticky and not to renegotiate their contracts? Just wanted to understand this business going forward, can we see some competitive pressure for the bids of the newer contracts, which would lead to lower margins or lower market share?
Yeah. Hi. Great question.
Right.
If you think about it, we were not in the distribution business at all. The sheer fact that we were able to sign contracts with very powerful groups and brands globally confirms that we are doing a few things right. While we do not want to underestimate the competition, and I am sure competition is here to stay, we believe that certain beliefs and thoughts that we have is making us a very preferred partner for the country. Yes, contracts depends largely three years, some of them five years, and some of them beyond that.
Contract is obviously a binding factor, but what is more important is to be able to do a good job for the brand as they see fit with local adaptations. All these brands have got very strong capabilities in terms of market knowledge, expertise, exposure, marketing might, etc ., b ut what makes us quite different, as we believe, is our ability to do a lot of things locally because we position ourselves as the experts in India.
And for us, with the legacy of 30+ years of retail, consumer behavior, and exposure in beauty, we think we are quite qualified, and we are able to continue this robustness going forward. Having said that, we are quite cognizant of the competitive landscape. We respect the competition because as a distributor, we work with all these partners. Our philosophy is just to be very unbiased, very fair to all partners that exist in the ecosystem.
Okay. Thank you so much. My second question is in terms of our INTUNE—
Ma'am, I am sorry to interrupt. Could you please use your handset? The voice is not coming clear.
Yeah. So in terms of INTUNE, our losses have on a quarter-on-quarter basis increased by INR 5 crore. Just wanted to understand that since we are done with our closures and inventory rationalization, A, wanted to understand where is this incremental loss coming from. Second, what kind of further store closures are we looking for in the current year? And third would be, are we still on line to close this year on INR 40 crore-INR 50 crore losses?
I think you are referring to Q1 versus Q2. If I understood your question correctly. See, that may not be the right comparison, okay? Because of various reasons. Every quarter is different in nature. The right way to compare is Q2 of this year versus Q2 of last year. If you see our new ventures performance update, we actually reduced the losses by 33%.
Right.
I think that would be the right comparison. That is what we have done in H1. As far as your store closure question is concerned, Kavi did mention that as we continue to improve our margin profile, there may be some part of the tail that we have to cut down. At the same time, when we get the right opportunities, we will open new stores as well. We are not averse to opening new stores. We have added two stores in this financial year for INTUNE as well.
Okay. On a net basis, you will be seeing store addition is what you are after. On a net basis.
As of now, yes. But as we mentioned, as far as INTUNE is concerned, our strategy is to fix the margin profile and then ramp up. But in the process, if we get an opportunity for the right store, we will open it. At the same time, if we find that any store where we are losing money, we will be bold enough to shut it down as well.
Abhiram, as I mentioned, please wait for Q3, because that is when we will give an update on this. For us, when we are talking about the Q3 results, that is when we will talk about the INTUNE expansion plan going forward.
Got it. Coming to Q3, you mentioned your press release as effective, like we are seeing a mid-teen kind of a growth. That would be 100% coming from ASP hike, or that would be a mix of volume and are you asking me that is the hike coming from price led or volume led or what would be the mix of the same?
No. That 15% growth or the mid-teen is a mixture of both. It is around 7% for ASP and the balance 8% because of volume. What we are seeing is that we are able to sell more merchandise and with a higher price.
Okay. This will be for the first two weeks, right?
No. For Pujo, we have a six weeks this thing, and right now as we speak, the data I am talking about to you is that five weeks are over. This actually is a very strong data. It is not a two-week data. For Pujo, the Pujo week takes till Dussehra, till Vijayadashami day. For all practical purposes, now we have done 37, 38 days, and the mid-teen growth is coming from there. Similarly, the Dussehra number which I told you is also a four-week data, and right now we are at the last four days. In both the cases, the mid-teen number covers a fair bit of time taken by the stores to see how we are performing.
Got it. In terms of overall departmental stores, we are seeing four new stores this year to bring our total to 12 for this year. What kind of closures are we seeing there?
Abhiram, we have opened six stores, and we will till 31st or till 30th September, we will open six more stores this year. We are looking at one or two store closure.
Okay. With every store closure, do we see any costs getting optimized or reduced? Like what would be a one-time cost that or fixed cost in nature which would be reduced for that?
What we are doing is we are running a very strong project to either turn around a few stores which are loss-making, maybe because the market is shifted or whatever other thing is. Otherwise, I think if you look at the way we are managing costs quarter- on- quarter, that is super tight. I think we have been quite efficient in controlling costs. In fact, our OpEx is for all practical purposes, it is flat. I think looking at a full year cycle and with stores coming in, I think it is a very good, strong, tight cost optimization and cost control without compromising on the consumer experience.
Got it. Currently we are reading a lot of news where the rentals for the malls, etc. , has increased because of vacancies. There is no supply as such. Are you seeing similar trend when you are saying that you are adding four new departmental stores, etc. ? Are you seeing some kind of incremental rentals versus your average rental value, and what kind?
No, we are not seeing. Abhiram, the stores which are opening now must have got signed 24 months back on an average. Right?
Okay.
Second thing is because in a lot of cases, we are the only departmental store which is offering that kind of merchandise mix. We are a retailer of choice for the partners. Right? So I think it works both ways. So we are not seeing that struggle for us.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ashutosh Joytiraditya with ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. My first question is on basically the consumer behavior. If you see across your portfolio, maybe on the departmental side, the premium portfolio, which is their luxury beauty, say, and then the value format, INTUNE. Just want to understand, are you seeing any structural shift basically in the consumer spending? Just to give you an example, say, urban shopper, he may be like going for the maybe experimenting with the luxury or, say the fragrances of luxury brands, and they might be cutting back on basically the mainstream apparel portfolio. Any such thing happening at your portfolio level?
Thanks, Ashutosh. Great question. As I mentioned, and I think in my call as well, in my commentary as well. The growth which we are seeing for a mid-teen growth, I think it's a very strong growth. I think the markets are strong. The demand is there, and it's a strong demand. That's the first starting point. This demand in the previous quarters was aimed more towards the non-apparel. But as I mentioned, what we are seeing now is that fashion is also doing really well. Which for me is very good because fashion allows customers to come again and again to the retail store, in our case, to Shoppers Stop and non-apparel or watches and the entire segment helps to drive the ASP.
What we are seeing is that demand, especially in the festive season, has been quite strong, and apparel is also doing very, very good numbers, whether it's menswear or women's western or women's India. I think we are seeing a broad demand in premium merchandise across the entire portfolio. Even when we look at our business and within that, and if we start ranking the brands in terms of in our portfolio also, our premium brands are doing better than our mid segment brands. I think what we are seeing is, and I can't comment upon Diwali because Diwali is just starting. Maybe if this call would have happened 10 days down the line, I would have given you a strong reference of Diwali markets as well.
What we are seeing is that both for Dussehra and Pujo, the demand for premium merchandise is quite strong, and it's not limited to non-apparel. It's now broad-based, including fashion and apparel. Yeah. In terms of INTUNE, you were asking me, what we are seeing is that because last year, I think, and to be fair, last year, we had a lot of challenges in terms of the merchandise availability, in terms of our operations, which we have corrected now. That's how we again have a mid-teen growth in our INTUNE business as well, and we are seeing a strength there. But clearly the premium brands are doing really well. The premium fashion is really working.
Okay. I wanted to understand, are the consumers strictly cutting on the premium apparel and spending more on the adjacencies like fragrances? I got my answer.
No, Ashutosh, that is not the case is what I am trying to tell you. This festive, especially for the last five or six weeks, we are seeing that the fashion brands also doing very well.
Right. Okay.
Yeah. I mean, it is a very strong sale.
Next thing on INTUNE, I think you have already commented a lot on INTUNE, but just want to get your sense. So there has been aggressive expansion by other value retailers across geographies. So, what would be our differentiated strategy to basically, keep the footfalls at the store levels high and maybe the conversion rates also at a higher rate? Any specific strategy which the company is trying to implement?
As a company, CRM is a very strong strength for us. In the Shoppers Stop business, our ability to reach out to the customer, I think so that particular piece, we are really working in terms of market activation even for INTUNE, and we are seeing some very, very good successes. So that's one. Second is that as our positioning is very different from somebody else which is focused on While others are focused on young fashion, we are a more a family-led business where kids wear plays an important role. So we are a young family, and we are not necessarily the Gen Z.
So there's a positioning difference. This positioning difference was also there, always there. The product differentiation was also there because I think our products generally are very good. What we are able to do now, and which I think will give us a very good Q3 and subsequent quarters is our ability to engage with the customer, get the operations right, get freshness in the store. So right now, if you ask me, Ashutosh, we are just focusing on this. In terms of our competitors opening more stores, that's something, a journey which we will—
The market size is huge, and the market will continue to formalize from non-organized to organized. That will keep on happening, and there will be enough spaces for us to acquire. But I think we have had two quarters of strong recovery. This Q3, and what I'm saying right now is what I maintained in Q1 call as well, or Q4 last year call as well, that give us time till end of December to completely get the processes right, and then we will start the journey of opening stores post that.
Okay, understood, sir. One last question. I do not know if anyone has already asked. On the debt thing, you have mentioned that it will be basically paid, all the debts will be cleared by Q3 FY 2027. We have turned positive this quarter. Just want to understand how will this repayment be done. It will be through the cash generation or maybe some optimization on the working capital side. Just want to understand on that.
Okay. Large part of the working capital optimization has been done and the good practices will continue. As far as debt reduction is concerned, it will be purely on account of the internal accruals and the strong EBITDA momentum that we have got.
Okay. Sure.
Yeah. Okay.
Thank you, sir.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Yash with YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible, sir?
Yes, Yash, you are.
Thank you so much for the opportunity. Sir, I do not know if this is asked before, but ideally, I want to know about the margins of the beauty retail. If you compare it with the beauty distribution and the department stores beauty counters. Yeah, the comparison. Hello?
Yes. See, the beauty margins are relatively better than the overall margin of our departmental store, if I think that is your question.
So—
Yeah.
—departmental store and beauty distribution.
Okay. Even in beauty distribution, the margins continue to be healthy. Yes, the brand portfolio is a bit different because we are importing from various leading brands. We are also promoting them through aggressive marketing. But at a gross margin level, the margins are pretty healthy, and you can see that in the overall profitability numbers of our distribution business.
Yes. Will we be able to sustain that?
Absolutely, yes. All the new contracts that we are entering into, they are either at the same or higher margins. There is no question of margins going down.
Okay. Thank you so much for the answer. My next question would be, what are the brand concentration risks in distribution? What is the contract duration with the top brands?
Sorry, what was the first part of your question?
What are the brand concentration risks?
Brand concentration risk. Okay. Basically, there are two large cohorts that we look at. One is powerful brands and powerful groups. Normally, if you look at categories, of course, you have makeup, skincare, fragrance, hair care, etc . But from our point of view, we look at every potential brand group that could do well from an Indian perspective. The starting point was that we were, and we continue to be heavily focused or, let's say, playing in the luxury segment. But there are quite a strong portfolio of brands that's also in the lifestyle segment. Obviously there's a play in the masstige segment, but we are quite careful there to select brands that gets the right commercials, because at the end of the day, we also are cognizant of the local market players, D2C brands, etc .
If I've answered the first part of the question. For the second part of the question, as I mentioned earlier also, contract is important and sacred, but at the end of the day, it all depends on how good you do the job for the brand. For us, it is a global perspective with local twist, local adaptation. Having said that, brand contracts can be a two-year to five-year contract. It can go even upwards of that. So it's a function of how confident each partners are and how much we want to take the leap of faith for the future.
Okay. Thank you, sir, for your answer. My next question would be regarding beauty store opening. What competitive impact do you see from competitors like Nykaa, Tira and Sephora?
I think Kavi clearly mentioned that we have a particular position that we believe that we have a right to win, and our focus is quite on the consumer engagement and the experience. I think for a market like India, which is still quite, I wouldn't want to use the word nascent, but still very small when it comes to organized retail, we have a lot of opportunity to coexist. I think it is for the right to win for each of the partners to decide how aggressive they want to take it, and we want to get the fundamentals right. We have been in this space for a long time, and we think that we will continue to be focused on this category as such.
Okay. Thank you, sir. If I'm allowed to ask one more question then, what is the share of company's own D2C beauty brands, if you can tell me?
Sorry, can you repeat?
What is the share of company's own D2C beauty brands?
It's very small. Negligible as of now.
Yes.
Okay, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the update.
Yeah.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one. The next question comes from the line of Jai Prakash, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Sir, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. I have been a retail investor with Shoppers Stop for more than two years. I have only one question for Mr. Kavindra Mishra. That is, was there any value creation for the investors? Because last two years there has been a negative return for the retail investor, around 60%- 65%. Was there any discussion in the board about value creation for the investors?
Thank you, Mr. Jai Prakash, for asking this question. I think we have also chatted about this before. As you are seeing, our focus is to drive the business productivity and profitability. We have gone through some difficult time because of whatever reasons it might be, but I think we are on the cusp of seeing a breakout now. Please have some more patience. I requested some amount of patience from you, and thank you for that. I think if we have this question in the next quarter, the quarter after, I think we will be in a better position to address your concern.
I just wanted to assure you that from our side, whether it is the teams or whether it is, I think we are seeing some standout performances happening, and you will be pleasantly surprised the way things are going to happen. Because I think there is a festive shift, the very fact that we have been able to grow our business and profitability over the previous year, I think it is a remarkable turnaround, and you will see the same journey going forward. Thank you for the trust, and hopefully, we will pay back handsomely to you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Deepali Kumari with Arihant Capital Markets Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Other income has risen sharply this quarter and seems to be main reason for PAT turn positive. Could you break down how much of it is one-off versus recurring? Since there have been one-off gain in most recent quarters. What would be impact if we excluding these item, and by when do you expect core operation to be profitable on their own?
Sir, Pankaj this side. Let me just clarify, there are no one-offs, and whatever results that you have seen are purely operational.
Okay.
Okay.
And sir, what is the age inventory, like over 180 days and the markdown provisions?
Okay, so let me again clarify. That's too sensitive information to disclose about aging of our inventory. But what I can tell you is that the inventory profile has improved significantly. As compared to the aging profile, the amount of liquidation that we've done of the age inventory is also very substantial. So on that note, you can also see the kind of working capital improvement that have taken place in our cash flow statement. It's on a very high improving trend. That's what I can tell you.
Okay. And sir, what is the between stores and e-commerce, and how much of the online sales are on omni-channel, like picked from store?
For us, e-commerce mix is around 3%-4%, depending upon the categories. Is that the question which you are asking, Deepali?
Yeah, from e-commerce, how much you do the direct sale?
Yeah. Around 4% is what is our e-commerce business.
Okay, got it. And sir, what is private label beyond apparel, and what is the roadmap for that?
Our private label businesses or what we call as Shoppers Stop brands are primarily based in fashion. We do have a very small, as I mentioned before, that we have a very small mix of our beauty brands which are in this, but I think that is negligible. Whatever you see private brands, 99% of that is basically fashion. I did speak about that in terms of the profitability which they are driving for us as an organization.
Okay, sir. One more question. What is the customer acquisition cost on the digital channel, if you can give me some idea?
For us, I think the beauty of Shoppers Stop is that we try to use and drive business through our First Citizen database. Unlike a lot of other retailers or e-commerce players who need to build through performance marketing a huge new customer, this thing, for us the focus is to use our First Citizen. While that information is too sensitive to disclose, I am just trying to tell you that for us the focus is more towards driving our omni-behavior through the First Citizen customer, right?
Okay, sir. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. With that, we conclude today's conference call. On behalf of Shoppers Stop Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.