Originating in India in the year 1999, Lifestyle is a retail fashion brand which comes under Dubai-based retail and hospitality conglomerate, the Landmark Group. Lifestyle's inventory consists of several national and international brands, and its product categories include Indian and western apparels, footwear, handbags, beauty products, and fashion accessories for men, women, and children. In India, Lifestyle Stores is a part of Lifestyle International Pvt. Ltd, with sister brands Home Centre, Max, and Easybuy. Lifestyle International Pvt. Ltd has witnessed a compounded annual growth rate of 25% over the last three years, and has been ranked 10th on the list of Best Companies to Work for in 2015.
Overview
Lifestyle opened its first store in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India in 1999. Each Lifestyle store offers five concepts under one roof -Splash, Baby Shop, sunny, Home Centre , Lifestyle accessories consisting of Beauty and Skincare, Fine jewellery and Watches. Lifestyle International Pvt. Ltd is led by Vasanth Kumar, who is the Managing Director of the company. Landmark Group's business in India, which started with the Lifestyle stores, has now expanded to include Home Centre, Max, and Easybuy. The Group's foray into e-commerce in India began in January 2016 with Landmarkshops.in, which was replaced by two separate brand sites and apps for Lifestyle and Max in January 2017.
Company growth
Lifestyle International Pvt. Ltd.saw a growth of about 24% in the fiscal year 2016 to cross the Rs. 7,000 crore mark. Lifestyle aims to achieve a 20-25% growth annually for the next few years, to make itself a Rs. 8,000-8,500 crore company in the coming years.
The Lifestyle stores have a multi-level store format, which is normally spread over two or three floors that provides a square line-of-sight, allowing customers to view the product sections in a single glance. The company sells national and international brands, which make up 75% of their stock, along with its in-house brand labels that bring in about 30% of the revenues and account for the remaining 25% of in-store stock. Lifestyle's private labels include brands like Melange, which is already a 150 crore brand with eight exclusive stores in India. Lifestyle International sees most of its revenue from its brick-and-mortar stores, which consist of 63 Lifestyle stores. The retail chain is already established in 1 tier cities, and plans to develop stores in 2/3-tier cities such as Nagpur, Jaipur and recently, Visakhapatnam and Nashik. Each store is estimated to cost the company around Rs. 10 crore to set up, on an average.
Latest store openings
Lifestyle's 55th store was opened on 6 September 2016, at Bangalore's Phoenix Marketcity, Whitefield. It was inaugurated by Bollywood actor and Melange's brand ambassador, Kangana Ranaut. In addition to that, another store was inaugurated at the Waltair Uplands in Vishakhapatnam by actor Rana Daggubati on March 24, 2017.
Employee welfare initiatives
In wake of a high employee attrition rate in 2015, the company decided to offer flexible working hours and to provide medical facilities to its front-end staff, among other benefits. With that, the company has managed to reduce the attrition rate to 35% in 2017, from 80% in 2005, while the industry average is still 50%. Employee welfare initiates called ‘LIFE’and ‘LEAP’ were run by the company. LIFE standing for Learn - Implement - Fastrack - Expert and LEAP for Landmark Education are two in-house programs that provide technical and soft skills to the front-end employees and enables them to get a degree in retail management, respectively. The company also held employee appreciation programs such as the Lifestyle People Oscar Awards, Clash of Icons, Make a difference; Incentives and Long Service awards are given periodically to deserving employees. Corporate Theatre was another informal learning technique used by Lifestyle to educate, entertain and engage its employees.
Spreading awareness about diabetes, Landmark Group has held multiple editions of the ‘Beat Diabetes’ campaign that involves setting up free glucose screening test counters at Lifestyle and other stores under the brand. The sixth and latest edition of the campaign was held in November 2015 and had athlete Anju Bobby George and film actresses Amulya and Samyukta Hornad join in.
Home centre stores
Home Centre is a part of the Lifestyle chain of stores in India. Having centres in UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia,Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Kuwait, and India, Home Centre spans over a retail area of over 2.4 million square feet. Home Centre by Lifestyle sells furniture, furnishings and home decorative. The brand has been awarded as the Most Admired Retailer award in the Home & Office Improvement Category, for two consecutive years – 2008 and 2009.
