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Westside, a department store by Tata‘s Trent which houses around 20 private labels, is planning to expand its beauty segment along with increasing its share from e-commerce, Shailina Parti, COO at Trent Ltd. told ETRetail.
The brand, which on average opens 30 stores each year, is expanding the area dedicated to beauty by 3x in its revamped and refurbished stores. Out of 300 stores, the brand operates, it has till now refurbished around 15-20 stores.
“To capture the beauty market, we’re investing in R&D, along with launching many new ranges. We’ve gone into fragrance in a big way. We are also launching skincare. Our objective is to develop affordable quality products. So, we are building beauty and we see beauty very much in the forefront of our strategy,” she said.
“Westside.com has grown 150 percent on last year. We want to further build our online proposition. Currently, e-commerce contributes to 7 per cent of our overall revenue and is profitable. There lies an opportunity to grow it by another 30-40 percent on the current base over the next 2 years,” she further added.
At present, 65 per cent of the revenue of the brand comes from women’s wear, 30 per cent from men’s wear, and the remaining 5 per cent is divided among other categories.
“There are 3 pillars of our strategy in terms of our platform – ethnic women’s fashion, women’s western wear, and men’s wear. These are the three fastest-moving and highest revenue categories,” she said.
The brand is also planning to have the home segment only in the stores which have huge space.
“We’ve realized doing a little bit of home in all our stores all over the country, may not be what we want. We should find the right stores with lots of space and do it well. So that’s what we’re doing and we will keep it to limited stores,”mshe explained.
Apart from this, the brand is also betting big on other categories like lingerie and accessories.
Currently, the 25-year-old brand has a presence in 86 cities – 8 metro and tier I cities and 78 tier II. It has 109 stores in metro and tier I cities and 121 in tier II cities.
“We are betting big on tier II cities as aspirations and purchasing power of the consumers is improving. Apart from this, there’s less competition in those cities for fashion. So, the less competition gives us the advantage as well” she asserted.
The brand, which has 25 to 30 per cent of its stores in malls and the reamaining in the high-streets or out of town, is growing 17 per cent year-on-year.
“We are not in the business of above-the-line marketing and advertising as we’re building a community. We’re building experiential marketing that connects people with Westside, not on a brand level, but on a community level and we see that as a very much long-term strategy,” she said.
Concluding the interaction, she further added, “Westside as a brand in India is evolving every year. It’s not a revolution and it’s not going to have super fast growth. So, going ahead, I see 10-15 per cent growth each year.”
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