British shoemaker Clarks Future Footwear Pvt. Ltd., which has witnessed a washout of its business for the first quarter, is anticipating a 10% to 15% drop in its sales volume on an annualised basis for the current year, said a top executive.

“Generally, our financial year begins in February. Our first quarter has gone for a toss and we don’t anticipate much of a sales till August. In other words, it would be a complete washout for us,” said N. Mohan, executive director and CEO, Clarks India. “In fact, we don’t know when we will be allowed to retail our footwear. Even if the retail outlets opens in May, we can see some business only from June/July onwards,” he said.

According to him, Clarks India witnesses 40% of its annual business in the first half and 60% in the second half. Due to the current scenario, business in the first half will be lower by 50% in terms of pairage compared with the planned growth of 30%.

Till date, Clarks India has honoured all the orders placed with its suppliers. It is likely to cancel or hold back two lakh pairs of shoes for the autumn and winter seasons.

“Last year, we sold 8.7 lakh pairs clocking a growth of 45%. And this year, we raised our target to 1.2 million pairs with an anticipated growth rate of 30%. Going by the current trend, we might end the year with a contraction of 10% to 15%,” he said.

In retail value terms, sales would be ₹420 crore for the current year against ₹400 crore for last year.

Clarks outsources 60% its products from Indian suppliers, 35% from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam and less than 3%-4% from China. “Even if there are no supplies from China, it would not hurt us,” he said.

Asserting that they would end up selling 8.5 million pairs of shoes, he said that they are betting on e-commerce for sales against brick and mortar models, which would take time to recover. However, the company was not going back on its proposed expansion of exclusive branded outlets or retail touch points, he said adding that it would be done as per the government’s directive.

India accounts for 90% of Clarks’ revenue and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal the balance.

“Due to the pandemic, strong brands like Clarks will emerge stronger and we expect market to stabilise after September,” he said.

Clark planned to sell three million pairs in three years. All these will get postponed by a year, he said.