Zara's Indian partner is looking to expand its own apparel empire more than 10 years managing Zara stores Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, is reportedly building its own apparel empire, focusing on trends just like Zara does, but with clothes that would be at half the price. The Mumbai-based multinational company has been Inditex SA’s partner, operating Zara stores in India for nearly a decade. Noel Tata, Chairman, Tata Group, stated that the company’s retail unit, Trent Ltd., is planning to launch 40 stores of its flagship Westside chain every year along with hundreds of its mass market Zudio outlets across India. He further added that the target audience is a globalized and trend-conscious population, whose low average incomes indicate that clothing from Zara is beyond reach and Trent’s lower prices would be a better fit. Evidently, Trent is hiring employees to pick upcoming trends and introduce 300 new styles across its stores each week. But Trent’s goal to be like Zara seems to be hindered by challenges specific to India. According to sources, Trent has faced ample challenges in locating space for new stores as traditional high streets are rare in the congested and chaotic cities of India. IT fell short of its goal of adding 100 new Zudio stores last year due to the same reason. It also faces tough competition from local rivals who offer a similar blend of ethnic Indian styles and western wear at even cheaper prices. Despite of all the challenges, Trent seems to view trendiness as its main advantage over these competitors and is working to make its swift fashion supply chain even faster, sources with knowledge on the matter stated. Mr. Tata commented that trends make them more responsive to what customers are looking for and having a shorter supply chain enables them to respond to the trends even faster.   Source credits: https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/zara-s-indian-partner-tata-is-building-its-own-apparel-empire-at-half-price-119062400075_1.html