Shoppers Stop plans large-format standalone outlets, will also house Aditya Birla Group’s The Collective
Shoppers Stop, India’s oldest department store chain, plans to enter luxury retailing with large-format standalone stores that will sell brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, one person aware of the company’s plans told ET.
The new format will also house the Aditya Birla Group’s luxury store The Collective, the person said.
The company plans to launch two luxury outlets this fiscal year and one of them could be in Kolkata, the other in Mumbai, the person said.
Shoppers Stop declined to comment. Since its inception over three decades ago, Shoppers Stop has been mostly selling merchandise for the masstige or bridge-to-luxury segment. The decision to foray into luxury retailing comes amid a spike in the number of wealthy people in the country. “For us, premiumisation is not just selling luxury products…but (if) a person who used to buy from the roadside has now started buying from the mall, (that) is also a premiumisation,” Kavindra Mishra, managing director and CEO of Shoppers Stop, had told ET last month.
Major Players
“People are upgrading and this is happening across segments,” said Mishra.
Reliance and the Aditya Birla Group are the existing major players in luxury retailing in the country, having partnered with over 50 luxury brands.
“The biggest challenge for luxury brands is availability of retail space,” said Shriram PM Monga, cofounder of retail consultancy firm SRED. “Most of these (luxury) brands have this clause of presence of similar brands to create a luxury retail environment in order to not
