Footwear major Bata India is planning to open about 500 franchise stores which would come up in small towns over the next five years. The company now has 150 franchise stores. These will be single-store towns. That means Bata India is looking at 500 towns. For that the company has charted out a five year plan in which the footwear major is adding around 100 stores every year. Bata now has seven entirely women-run stores, and is planning to open one in South Kolkata, which will also be its first such outlet in eastern India. Bata’s new franchise store expansion plan is indeed a new business opportunity for the signage companies engaging in in-store signage projects.
