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.”
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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.
