The Noel Tata interview: Why Trent boss thinks selling apparel online is hard

livemint.com:

₹200 crore. The Indian cosmetics brand, created under the watch of the late J.R.D. Tata in 1952, had taken wing in 1952 when Simone Tata, Noel Tata's mother, joined the board.

After selling the cosmetics brand, Tata decided to use the sale proceeds to enter organized retail by acquiring Littlewoods International in the same year it sold the cosmetics business. Trent Ltd, chaired by Noel Tata, is now India's fastest-growing apparel retail chain, enjoying a market capitalization of ₹2,40,903 crore. It has multiple formats including ethnic wear, cosmetics and grocery retail, under its fold, which are being incubated before it is scaled up like Westside and Zudio.

Edited excerpts from an interview with Noel Tata: I was asked this same question at the shareholders' meeting of 22-23, where I said that Trent had the opportunity to be 10X its size, but don’t ask me by when. We will continue to grow at pace while always trying to keep our customer proposition and service at the forefront of everything we do. Successful retail is not only a numbers game.

There is a saying that “Retail is detail" which is very true. There are an amazing number of moving parts that need to fall in place together to deliver a successful customer proposition. It is a difficult question.

As you know, all our group companies are doing exceptionally well, and each one is constantly raising the bar. So, I don’t know what the future holds in relative terms. That said, we will continue to focus on our customers and our market cap will be what it is.

There is a lack of understanding around this issue. Launching a private label brand differs significantly from launching a multi-brand store format. With Westside, since we chose to be completely own branded, we