"We aim to maintain 50% YOY growth trajectory for 3 years": Ashish Jain, Von Wellx Germany

Von Wellx Germany is e first-ever healthy footwear brand in India has decided to shift its entire China production to India in light of the ongoing pandemic. In collaboration with Iatric Industries Pvt Ltd the company is setting up a new unit in cooperation with the UP Govt. in Agra, India. 

While this comes as great news for the brand it also brings with it numerous other benefits for the country such as-widespread employment generation increase in the production capacity up to 30,00,000 pairs which was only 7,00,000 pairs earlier. In an exclusive conversation with Ashish Jain, CEO, and Director, Von Wellx Germany shares more details and brand strategy for the Indian market. 

Tell us about the brand Von Wellx. What kind of footprint the brand enjoys in India as well as the international market?

Von Wellx Germany is a footwear brand based on Internationally Patented German Technology - 5 Zones By Dr.Mauch across Men's and Women's Category. We believe Foot is the 2nd most complex organ of the body after brain and shoe is the most important piece of clothing. It is believed that healthy footwear is one of the most important parts of your healthy lifestyle apart from exercise, healthy food, sleep and stress management. 
In India we are present in – Metro, Mochi, Central, Shoppers Stop, Centro, Lulu, Hollywood and other top retailers. Our online presence includes vonwellx.com, Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, Ajio etc . Von Wellx  is distributed across  80 countries, 100 million customers at over 15000 points of sales. )

What is your assessment about footwear market in India and how consumer behavior has changed due to Covid 19?

The demography and changing buying behaviour are triggering enhanced demand from the existing pie. Rising disposable incomes and new entrants into the workforce, especially women are pushing the domestic demand on the upside. 

Women’s footwear constitutes only 30 per cent market share currently. But the growth rate of this segment is double than the men’s segment. Where the men’s footwear market has registered a 10 per cent CAGR growth rate in the last fiscal, it is 20 per cent for the women's segment . Also it has increased the per capita consumption from 1.6 to 2.4 in the last 5 years. 

So overall, we see a major transition to healthy and comfort category footwear in the coming years.
•    Industry – Premium Footwear (Leather and Non Leather)
•    Target market size – 4000 Crores
•    Target market share – 12%
•    Footwear Market Size – 40000 crores
•    Premium Footwear Segment (Leather and Non Leather – 
•    Next Five Years – CAGR of 11 %

 How would you assess the impact of Covid 19 on your business? When do you think the industry will bounce back to pre covid timings?
Impact is prevalent. Markets expected to bounce back to 70% of normal in AW 20 and to 100% by AW 21. In 18 months 

Do you see any impact of Covid 19 on your distribution strategy? Going forward, what are the plans to increase the distribution in the online as well as offline space?
We are drifting more towards online channels and making the transition seamless. Opening Online Retail stores. We will be opening 25 exclusive stores in the next 18 months and 50 stores in 30 months. 
We will open up distribution for traditional retail in SS 21. We are expanding our footprint in Modern Retail to 500+ stores. Expanding our collection and already launched in major online channels this season. 

Kindly shed light on your omnichannel strategy?

We have the following strategy: 

Opening Online Physical stores – It’s a new concept that will be unveiled soon
Seamingless transition and availability from online and offline 
Hub and spoke model for distribution for faster delivery 
Targetted Marketing Activies for Healthy Footwear Category 

 Who do you see as your competition within the same space?
At the category level, though nobody is offering what we have at these prices and scale. 
At the need level, Hush Puppies. Clarks, Scholls, and Skechers are our major competitions. 

At last, kindly highlight your growth plans?
We target is to get the footwear to first 3 million feet in India and with the type of track record of our results and satisfaction level, we need not do anything after. For getting it to the first 3 million, we are increasing Point of sales to 1000 very soon, opening exclusive stores for a better understanding of our concept and support to typical problems at other places and are coming up with maverick schemes for 1st buy. We aim to maintain 50% YOY growth trajectory for 3 years.  We are also expanding across categories apart from Men and Women Black and Brown to kids and sports.