Tata’s Trent targets 100 new Westside stores annually

The Tata Group’s Trent Ltd. is aiming to expand its premium clothing brand Westside by opening as many as 100 new stores a year, double its current pace, to reinvigorate growth.

“We’ve been opening 10 to 15 stores each year, so to suddenly jump to a hundred stores is ambitious, but we’re ready for it,” Chief Executive Officer Shailina Parti said in an interview.

The brand — which sells apparel, beauty products, home decor, footwear and other accessories such as lab-grown diamonds — operated 300 stores at the end of its most recent fiscal year and is looking at expansion in the northeastern states of the country, as well as building out an existing network in top cities including Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

“The whole strategy is: How do we take everything and give it a fashion spin and that desirability of impulsive shopping?” Parti said. “So now that that’s happened, we’re ready to go much faster.”

Trent is under pressure for Westside to pick up the slack as Zudio, its bigger fashion chain focused on lower-priced trendy offerings, faces slowing revenue growth as well as fierce competition from conglomerates including Reliance Industries Ltd. and Aditya Birla Group.

Consumer demand has been shaky due to rising inflation and it’s also facing limits on retail space availability. Concerns over slowing growth at Zudio have weighed on Trent’s shares, which are flat this year and down 48% from their peak two years ago.

“Consumers are spending with caution, resulting in moderation of discretionary spending on the back of continuing macro uncertainties and potential increase in cost of living,” the company said in an investor presentation in April. 

But some analysts see Westside as the next big growth driver for the retailer, citing an impressive overhaul in the brand’s store designs and product portfolio.

“Is Westside the new Zudio?” Bernstein analysts Jignanshu Gor and Parth Shah wrote in a July 2 research note. “We think Trent’s confidence in Westside has a good foundation,” they said, adding the financial struggles of its peers give the brand space to emerge as “the benchmark department store format in India.”

Trent’s board approved raising ₹2500 crore ($260 million) earlier this year, most of which will be used to accelerate its retail footprint expansion. Some of those funds will be earmarked for Westside’s online business, Parti said, including international operations. The CEO aims to increase the e-commerce share of Westside’s total revenue to 10%, up from about 6% in the quarter ended March 31.

The Trent unit is seeking to expand the use of tech and artificial intelligence to improve its supply chain, warehouse organization and product design. A new AI software suite has boosted the productivity of its roughly 50 in-house designers, helping them generate 400 to 500 designs every week — up from an average of 50 previously. 

Parti said Westside is also looking at halving the production lead time for trendy items down to just 30 days. 

“We’re much faster than we ever were, but there’s more to go,” she said. “We’ve got to make it happen.”

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com