IndiaRetailBiz

“We believe that there is a huge business potential in Tier II and III markets. Consumers in these cities are well informed about the latest trends and are willing to spend… We aim to reach out to them and give them a world class shopping experience at affordable prices.” — Neeti Chopra, Head-Marketing, Trent Limited.

Westside, the flagship department store format premium apparel and household products retail chain of Tata group retail arm Trent Limited, has decided to adopt franchisee route to take its operations to tier II and III cities like Allahabad, Patna, Dehradun, Madurai, Jammu, Aligarh, Cochin and Salem. This comes in the wake of its earlier successful experience with franchisee model, when the company in 2007, had set up its first Westside franchisee store on an experimental basis in the growing knowledge city of Mysore near Bangalore.

The company, according to a PTI report, has planned to reach out to consumers through this model, in 37 new cities across the country. It is inviting franchise proposals from prospective franchisees based in the short listed cities.

While occupying between 8,000 and 12,000 sq ft of space, each of these franchisee stores will require an initial investment of Rs 1.5-2 crore.

Besides assisting franchisees in marketing and sales promotion, Westside would also extend its services in the area of staff recruitment, stock management, merchandising, IT, and project assistance.

Trent is one of the two pure retail plays of the Tata group. The other being Infiniti Retail which operates consumer durables chain under the brand name of ‘Croma.’ Tatas also have integrated retail outfits for brands like Titan and Tanishq.

As a retailing strategy, Westside focuses on single-brand private labels strategy. While, on one hand, this allows the retailer to garner high margin business, on the other, it is able to exercise better control over its product range, design, and pricing.

Trent, headed by Noel Tata, son of its founder Simone Tata, besides flagship Westside, also operates ‘Landmark’ and ‘Star Bazaar’ retail chains. While Landmark sells books, music, toys, gifts, and leisure products, Star Bazaar is a hypermarket format of the group.