This decade belongs to value fashion retailers, believes Akash Agarwal, whole time director at V2 Retail Ltd., the ₹ 1,100 crore chain that sells affordable clothing at its 129 stores in tier 2 and tier 3 towns. His confidence comes from the performance of his own brand which has seen a stupendous 37% same store sales growth in the first quarter this year affording him hope of reaching Rs1,500 crore turnover in FY2025.
Advent of several new affordable retail formats too has boosted his faith in the growth of mass-priced trendy branded fashion in India. Value fashion brands deliver on-trend clothes at low prices. In the last year alone big national retailers Shoppers Stop and Reliance Retail have launched value retail formats ‘Intune’ and ‘Yousta’ respectively.
Shoppers Stop plans to open 60 new Intune stores in FY 2025 to add to its existing 22. Reliance’s youth-centric, high-fashion Yousta and Intune, will compete with Tata Trent’s Zudio and Landmark Group’s Max. Trent reported a two-fold jump in profit in the first quarter driven by increased demand at its budget fashion Zudio which already has more than 550 outlets.
In May, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd also added another store of Style Up, its affordable trendy fashion chain for GenZ and Gen Alpha. Consumer preference for affordable fast fashion is seen globally in the phenomenal success of online brands like Fashion Nova and Shein, says V2 Retail’s Agarwal. “Shein has been downloaded more than A.