Puma, German sports lifestyle brand plans to open only premium ‘Forever Faster’ retail stores in India closing their older retail stores concept.

“We are now opening only Forever Faster store In India, the latest version of our retail stores. This is the concept we have decided to invest in now onwards,” Abhishek Ganguly, managing director of the company said.

Puma had launched the first ‘Forever Faster’ store in the country in April last year in New Delhi and has so far opened 22 Forever Faster stores in the country and plans to stick to the format in smaller towns also.

Ganguly informed the new retail stores are 30% more expensive to make than the previous store concept. “The Forever Faster store concept has worked not just in India but in all the other markets. The per-square-foot investment is higher in this concept but we believe it’s an investment worth making,” he said.

“We are investing heavily on Puma.com, increasing the size of catalogue on our site and ensuring better supply chain. We have given ourselves six months to drastically improve the experience at Puma.com. We currently have 63 company owned stores and we will continue to open our own stores going forward. We are now opening our own stores in smaller cities like Nagpur, Nashik and Bhopal,” Ganguly said.

Puma India had reported Rs 921-crore revenue last calendar, becoming the largest sports lifestyle brand in the country.

– Apparel and Textile News, Apparel Talk, Indian Apparel