Online eyewear firm Lenskart said it is planning to set up manufacturing units for lenses in seven to eight cities to help sharpen its focus on offline retailing as well as introduce a premium service to cut down on delivery time lines.
Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai are among locations where the company wants to have such satellite, small manufacturing facilities over the next 2-3 years. Each of them will have a capacity to handle 2,000 spectacles daily.
The combined investment will be in the $3-4 million range, co-founder and COO Amit Chaudhary said here on Tuesday. Lenskart imports frames from China and at present makes lenses at its 10,000 spectacles a day plant in New Delhi.
A bigger facility that can make 35,000 to 40,000 spectacles daily is coming up in Gurugram, with an investment of $10 million and is expected to be ready in three months, he said.
The firm is keen on introducing a service on the lines of Amazon’s Prime.for customers in need of spectacles faster and ready to pay more. The proposed satellite manufacturing units will be crucial for the success of proposed premium delivery channel, he said. Eventually, the company wanted to set up a manufacturing facility for frames in India.
The proposed units would also support expansion of the retail network, from existing 250 stores to 1,000 outlets in three years. Lenskart, which has raised over ₹700 crore and counts among its investors Ratan Tata, Infosys co-founder Krish Gopalakrishnan, World Bank’s IFC and Premji Invest, will turn profitable next fiscal, he said, adding the company is eyeing an IPO in 2019-20.
