Tata Group’s Westside Plans Aggressive Retail Expansion Across India
Tata Group’s retail arm, Trent, is preparing for a major expansion of its premium fashion brand Westside by increasing its annual store openings to as many as 100 locations, a significant jump from its previous pace of 10–15 stores per year.
Westside currently operates 300 stores across India, offering fashion apparel, beauty products, footwear, accessories and home décor. The brand plans to enter northeastern India while further strengthening its footprint in key metropolitan markets such as Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Alongside physical expansion, Westside aims to enhance its fashion offerings to encourage more impulse purchases.
The move comes as Trent seeks to reinforce Westside’s position amid slowing momentum at its value-fashion chain Zudio, which is facing stronger competition from major retailers, including Reliance Industries and the Aditya Birla Group. As of June 30, Zudio had 982 stores, including seven in the UAE, after adding 19 net new outlets during the June quarter. Consumer spending has also remained cautious due to inflation, economic uncertainty and limited availability of quality retail space.
To support its long-term growth strategy, Trent’s board earlier approved raising ₹2,500 crore for retail expansion. A portion of the investment will be directed toward strengthening Westside’s e-commerce platform and international operations. The company aims to increase online sales to 10% of Westside’s revenue, up from approximately 6% in the quarter ended March 31.
Westside is also expanding the use of artificial intelligence across product design, supply chain management and warehouse operations. AI-powered tools have significantly improved the productivity of its team of around 50 in-house designers, increasing weekly design output from roughly 50 concepts to between 400 and 500.
Additionally, the retailer is working to shorten production lead times for trend-driven collections to around 30 days, allowing it to respond more quickly to changing consumer preferences.