Footwear major Bata India plans to increase the number of franchisee stores in its fold to 500 over the next couple of years.

The company has a franchisee count of 323 of a total of 1,563 stores.

“We recorded our highest ever additions of franchise stores in a single year (75 stores last year). The momentum continues and we hope to see 500 stores in the next couple of years,” said Gunjan Shah, MD and CEO of Bata India, at the 89th annual general meeting of the company.

The franchisee route has helped the company to make inroads in smaller towns.

“Franchisees allow us to leverage the entrepreneurial spirit and it also gives us much faster scalability. It allows us to access areas which otherwise we could not have gone easily and at the speed that we want to go. We will see much faster additions in terms of franchisee stores. In the first quarter, we have already added 20 stores,” Shah told The Telegraph after the AGM.

Bata has also seen the contribution of digitally enabled channels including online sales, marketplaces and omnichannel home delivery reach 10 per cent of total sales during Q1FY23, which is 2.5 times higher than Q1FY20.

Shah also said that the steps taken by the company to improve cost efficiencies and calibrated price increases have helped to protect its margins amid the double impact of GST rise and inflationary pressures.

He also said that the company was adding new products at various price points.