Westside to expand retail spread with more new stores

Tata's retail arm Trent which operates Westside will open 30 new Westside stores this fiscal. At present there are 125 Westside stores. The plan is to double the number in three to five years. Around half of the new stores will be set up through the franchisee mode while the others will be company-owned.

Westside, set up in 1998, has a range of contemporary and exclusively designed clothes for men, women and children, which is not just value for money but also the finest merchandise spanning compelling, aspirational fashion. The stores stock a broad range of products ranging from apparel, footwear, accessories to cosmetics and perfumes to home accessories and gifts among others. Westside gets just two per cent of its business from third-party brands. It’s the in-house brands that are driving growth. Westside has a strong focus on selling private labels, which fetch higher margins of around 40 to 50 percent. Seven years back third-party brands contributed about 22 percent to revenue.

Trent is the retail extension of the Tata Group. The company, which runs a food and grocery retailing business in a joint-venture with Tesco, will move away from launching large format hypermarkets and focus instead on smaller stores that are easier to break even.