IndiaRetailBiz

“We would be covering all the tier II and III cities and all the stores would be company owned.” — Trent Official.

While, Birlas are getting into super-premium, luxury fashion apparel and accessorie segment through a new retail venture under “The Collective” brand name, Trent Ltd, one of the two retailing arms of the cars to chemicals Tata group, is foraying into value apparel retailing. The branding of the format has not been done as yet.

The new format will cater to the needs of price conscious low-income customers with limited disposable incomes in smaller cities and towns.

The value apparel format, like its counterpart lifestyle format, will also heavily depend on private labels. “In value-based retail, people are not necessarily brand conscious, unlike in high-end retailing. We would be developing our own brands in this segment,” said an official.

Trent, known for its lifestyle, department store format Westside flagship retail chain, recently came into limelight with signing a franchisee agreement with the world’s UK-based third largest retailer Tesco, hopes to unveil its value apparel store before March, 2009. The first pilot store measuring about 16,000 sqft of trading space will come up at Kalyan in the Thane district of Maharashtra.

While, sourcing for most of the products has already been locally tied up, for some of the merchandise for this chain Trent may in fact obtain resources of Tesco, according to a Business Line report.