Rbm2

WESTSIDE

Established in 1998as part of the Tata group, Trent ltd operates Westside one of the India’s largest and fastest growing chains of retail stores.

The Westside stores have numerous departments to meet the varied shopping needs of customers. These include menswear, women’s wear, kid’s wear, footwear, cosmetics, perfumes and handbags, household accessories, lingerie and gifts.

In 1998, after selling Lakme Ltd. to HUL, Tata’s acquired a London based retail chain named Littlewoods. With this takeover Tata established Trent Ltd. with Mrs. Simone Tata as head and renamed Littlewoods as Westside. Today Westside has reached to a total of 28 cities across India. The store size varies from 15000-30000 sq. feet. Currently, Noel Tata is heading Westside.

Westside are designed in such a way that it cater to shopping needs of various customers. The mission of Westside says that “We want to be the most preferred and consistently profitable lifestyle retailer”. The store includes apparels for men, women and children of all ages, footwear, cosmetics, perfumes and handbags, household accessories, lingerie, and gifts. Although nearly 70% of the products available at Westside are owned by itself, it also houses various other brands. According to the account statements of Trent, its annual sales in the year 2010 were Rs. 542.60 cr., and Westside accounts for 80% of the total sales. The profits earned by Trent were Rs. 40 cr.

Reliance’s Trends, Landmark Group’s Max, Pantaloons, Shoppers Stop and Wills Lifestyle are its major competitors.

RETAIL LOCATION

Not many out of the ordinary trends were visible in Westside’s place strategy. The most commonly observed fact about the place strategy was that the chain of stores was functioning mostly in the malls and few exclusive showrooms of major cities. Another fact that has been observed is that Westside stores are mostly located very near its main competitor in most cities, since both follow a similar strategy of...