Footwear major Liberty Shoes reported a 299 percent surge at Rs 6 crore ($822,647) in its net profit for the third quarter ended December 2020, as against a net profit of Rs 1 crore it reported in the corresponding period last year.

The company’s revenue for the quarter was down by 2 percent to Rs 147 crore, as against Rs 150 crore it had reported in the year-ago period.

Adesh Gupta CEO and Executive Director said,the company has started witnessing the improvements at sales front during the period October-December 2020 after a long sluggishness in retail post lockdown due to the continued impact of COVID-19.”

Assuming the increased demand next year, the company is planning to launch new products/brands at affordable pricing to capture the increased demand and restore its sales with the new growth.

Liberty Shoes currently has a total of 400 flagship stores across India and is present in over 5,000 multi-brand outlets. It also retails from its e-commerce store.

SoftBank-backed FirstCry aims to negotiate with TPG Growth, Premji Invest and ChrysCapital to raise $150-180 million at a valuation of $1.8-2.1 billion. The transaction would double FirstCry’s valuation in less than 24 months. SoftBank Vision Fund had acquired a 40 per cent stake in the company in 2019, valuing it at about $1.1 billion. The company aims to go public in 24-36 months and wants to realign its capitalization table before that.

Since 2011, FirstCry has raised $503 million in seven funding rounds from investors such as Chiratae Ventures, NEA, Vertex Partners and Elevation Capital, Valiant Capital, Ratan Tata, Krish Gopalakrishnan and Softbank, according to Venture Intelligence data. The company is a leader in the omnichannel baby and mother care products segment. It acquired BabyOye from Mahindra Retail in an all-stock deal worth Rs 362 crore in 2016.

FirstCry has more than 300 stores in 125 cities. It expanded its user base to over 4 million and offers 200,000 baby and kids products from 2,000 brands. In FY20, the Pune-based company’s revenue rose by 68 per cent to Rs 897 crore, helping it to it cut net losses by 83 per cent to Rs 191 crore. Its expenses dropped by 26 per cen to Rs 1,088 crore.

Aditya Birla Group firm Grasim Industries reported over a twofold jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 2,152.33 crore for the third quarter ended December 31.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,039.82 crore during the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal, Grasim Industries said in a regulatory filing.

Its revenue from operations during October-December 2020 rose 12.72 per cent to Rs 20,986.35 crore, against Rs 18,616.76 crore in the year-ago period.

The firm's total expenses were at Rs 18,278.75 crore in the third quarter of 2020-21, up 4.81 per cent as against Rs 1,7439.19 crore a year ago.

Revenue of Grasim Industries from viscose-pulp, viscose staple fibre (VSF) and filament yarn segments was down 2.20 per cent to Rs 2,145.14 crore, against Rs 2,193.55 crore.

Grasim Industries is an Indian manufacturing company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Grasim Industries was ranked 154th in a list of the world's best regarded firms compiled by Forbes. It was started in 1947 as a textile manufacturer. Since then Grasim has diversified into Viscose Staple Fiber, cement, sponge iron, chemicals and Diversified Financial Services.

Arvind Fashions has given the mandate to expand and grow its brands in smaller cities to its newly appointed managing director, Shailesh Chaturvedi.

As per Economic Times, ArvindFashions is raising Rs 200 crore to strengthen its balance sheet this year. In the fiscal, the retailer pruned its portfolio of brands and exited some, including Gap, The Children’s Place and Hanes in a bid to cut losses. In July, Walmart-owned Flipkart had picked up about 27% stake in AFL’s newly formed subsidiary Arvind Youth Brands, which owns denim label Flying Machine.

The casual and denim player, however, expects full business recovery by mid-year paced by the ongoing vaccination drive. It registered 80 per cen recovery in the third quarter ended December driven by good festive season and winter sales.

Owned by Ahmedabad-based textile manufacturer Arvind Ltd, Arvind Fashions started operations in 1993. Currently, the BSE-listed company is present through 1,200 exclusive brand outlets, 14,000 multi-brand outlets and 3,400 large format stores.

Navin Gurnaney, Head, Starbucks India has been appointed the new CEO of Reliance Brands. Gurnaney will join Reliance on May 1, 2021 and report to report to Darshan Mehta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Brands and handle a varied portfolio of food retail and hospitality concepts.

Reliance Brands operates brands such as Diesel, Superdry, Diesel, Giorgio Armani, Hamleys, Steve Madden, among several other foreign brands in India. In all it retails over 40 brands in the country. Last week, Tata Starbucks appointed Sushant Dash as its new chief executive officer in India effective May 1. Dash will replace Gurnaney who is stepping down to pursue an opportunity outside Tata Starbucks.

In its documents to Singapore International Arbitration Centre, Future Retail has accused US e-tail giant Amazon of demanding $40 million to forego its “right of first refusal” to buy Future Group’s assets in Future Retail.

In its submission to the emergency arbitrator, the retailer claimed that Abhijeet Mazumdar, head of corporate development and private investments at Amazon, had made a verbal offer to Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani on behalf of the e-tailer, asking for “$40 million as compensation in exchange for the Future Group and Reliance proceeding with the disputed transaction”.

As per an Economic Times report, the Future Group further claimed that according to messages exchanged between Biyani and Amit Agarwal, global senior VP and country head at Amazon India, the e-tailer was kept in the know about the progress of the deal between Reliance Industries (RIL) and the Future Group.

SIAC, however, had noted in its interim award against the proposed RIL-Future deal, which it granted to Amazon, that — despite the e-tailer actively seeking to invest more into the debt-laden Future Group along with other investors — it was not apprised of the finer details of the RIL-Future arrangement.

A part of Grasim Industries and a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, Birla Cellulose has bagged the prestigious Golden Peacock Global Award for Sustainability 2020, in the Textile and Apparel sector.

Ranked globally #1 by Canopy’s Hot Button Report 2020 for sustainable forestry practices and development of next-generation solutions for alternative feedstock, Birla Cellulose is a pioneer in sustainable sourcing practices. The company has able to neutralize its entire Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by carbon sequestration due to the growth of its directly managed forests and has taken leadership in the climate change initiatives in the MMCF industry.

Birla Cellulose also leads in the lowest water consumption in viscose fibre production, and its Nagda site is gearing up to be the first MMCF site globally to achieve zero liquid discharge (ZLD) site later this year in 2021.

Global leader in innovative casual footwear, Crocs has opened a new store in Delhi NCR. Spread across 950 sq ft this is the biggest Crocs store in India. It showcases the brand’s recently launched collections along with an array of styles which include classic clogs, sandals, slides, and flips suitable for all age groups.

The new Crocs store also showcases the LiteRide collection, inspired by the current and booming athleisure culture. The LiteRide collection is the newest revolutionary closed-cell material for light-weighted shoes featured in the collection. Made with equal parts science and magic, the foam shoes in the LiteRide™ combine comfortable sink-in softness with airy lightness.

The store also offers an elaborate collection of flips, sandals and slides. Made from Crocs' original Croslite™ foam, these sandals are incredibly lightweight and comfortable

Having won close to 300 million customers, e-commerce companies now aim to reach out to the next 200 million potential e-shoppers. Experts believe achieving this target would be challenging as consumers are less well-off, less trusting of online transactions and not as familiar with latest trends. But they’re as aspiring as anyone else. For this, retailers will need to carefully curate the merchandise and price products to match the purchasing power, says Ankur Pahwa, Partner, EY. Buyers would need a lot more hand-holding and this would call for a lot more interaction across multi-level touch points, perhaps even micro sites with a simple user interface within the main platform. In sum, Pahwa believes there will be a far greater use of the 4Vs – voice, vernacular, visual and video.

Anurag Mathur, Partner, PWC, points out local brands could be a lot more in demand. That would require e-commerce platforms to onboard more local vendors and enable and equip them to sell better. Also, electronic gadgets, which typically account for the bulk of the merchandise, might need to yield space to apparel, fashion products and even groceries.

An Omni channel strategy could be equally important. Pahwa says the route to market for the next 200 could be different with an omni channel piece a big part of the strategy. Indeed, there is a fairly large catchment of consumers that continues to browse on the net and buy in the stores. Deeper collaboration with brands and local manufacturers will help companies create demand as they are typically aware of customers’ consumption and purchasing patterns.