Go Colors Charts Growth Reset with Larger Stores and Expanded Apparel Range

Retailer tests larger stores and broader product categories while evaluating a wider everyday-wear offering alongside its core bottomwear business.

At a two-storey Go Colors outlet on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road, the retailer is showcasing a significantly wider apparel assortment than its traditional bottomwear range.

The nearly 2,000 sq. ft. store offers products including women’s tops, ethnic daily wear, jeans, palazzos, joggers and womensleygings. While the brand built its presence through bottomwear products, these categories now occupy only a portion of the store’s display space.

The format reflects a broader strategy being pursued by Gautam Saraogi, founder and chief executive officer of Go Colors. Having established the company as one of India’s largest bottomwear brands, the company is now testing a wider apparel proposition in a segment long dominated by established retailers.

In an interview, Saraogi said the company has taken inspiration from retailers such as Uniqlo and Westside while developing its expanded offering.

“We've taken some inspiration from that and said, okay, can we make a range which is 360 degrees all day,” he said.

The pilot format currently includes about 15-20 stores. The company has intentionally kept the initiative limited in scale before committing to larger investments.

While Go Colours has not disclosed the capital outlay, Saraogi said the initiative is being funded through internal cash flows and carries limited financial risk.

The pilot, launched within the past year, has delivered encouraging early results. Menswear already contributes about 13-14% of sales at the Chennai pilot store. The company plans to refine the product mix over the next six to seven months before deciding on a broader rollout.

“The early response has been encouraging,” Saraogi said. “If the pilot is successful, we'll scale it from there. In the best-case scenario, it opens up an entirely new growth engine for the business.”

The move comes as Go Colours works to revive growth after two difficult years. In December, the company reported weak demand for leggings, its flagship product, amid fashion shifts towards wider silhouettes and newer styles.

Same-store sales declined 2.6% in the March quarter and 3.4% for FY26, reflecting weaker demand and lower footfalls across stores. According to Saraogi, part of the challenge stems from the company’s smaller retail formats, which limit the ability to showcase its growing product portfolio.

As a result, Go Colours is shutting smaller stores and replacing them with larger formats.

Analysts have also linked the company’s recent challenges to the limitations of its smaller-format stores. JM Financial said weak growth was driven by a “diluted consumer experience” in stores smaller than 300 sq. ft., although it noted that the transition to larger stores could affect growth in the near term. Anand Rathi and Elara Capital have similarly highlighted pressure on same-store sales, store productivity and footfalls.

A former investor in the company, who did not wish to be identified, said the small-format model had previously been one of Go Colours’ key strengths because compact stores generated strong productivity through a deep assortment of bottomwear styles and a large number of stock-keeping units.

Saraogi said the pilot initiative is not a shift away from the company’s core category. Bottomwear continues to contribute about 99% of the company’s ₹838 crore revenue. Instead, the aim is to develop an additional growth engine alongside the existing business.