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The author has highlighted important aspects of RETAILING. For the last ten years, retailing in India has been continuously expanding its horizons from a small haatdi, a filthy kirana store, to multi operational, well organised SUPERMARKETS. Today, the Indian retail industry is one the largest in the world and is estimated to be worth over 450 billion USD. Due to this rapid growth in Indian retailing, global giant retailers like WAL-MART, GAP, and TESCO are trying to penetrate the Indian market. This book is addressed to students enrolled for Marketing at undergraduate levels.

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Chapter Eight:
SWOT ANALYSIS OF WESTSIDE & PANTALOONS:
India is well known as a competitive manufacturer of apparel. Many foreign companies have been sourcing large quantities of garments regularly from India for a number of years. But less well known is the fact that India has huge potential as a market for foreign clothing, given its large population and growing household incomes. A few significant foreign players-such as Levi Strauss, Benetton and Lacoste-have been selling their branded apparel in India for a number of years. But most foreign companies have yet to enter the Indian market.
Under government liberalisation policies, there has been a sharp increase in the availability and variety of Indian and foreign branded consumer goods on the market. Department stores have been expanding, franchising has grown in popularity, and malls have proliferated. But in 1997 the government banned foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Indian retailing sector, which means that direct foreign involvement in retailing remains restricted to franchising.
Foreign companies looking to tap the potential of the Indian market also need to understand that the Indian retailing system is very different from that which prevails in their home countries. These factors need to be taken into account when devising retailing strategies.
Undersuch dyanamic environment , one should look for the SWOT analysis of the organizations in the retailing scenario. Taking two major giants in the retailing, Pantaloons Retail India Limited (PRIL) and Westside of Trent Ltd, the SWOT analysis is done.
SWOT analysis is done to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the organization and gives the internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities. It shows how well the organization can work in the given competitive scenario, and help identify their internal strengths to withstand the competition and understand the competitor´s moves.
WESTSIDE TRENT LTD.:
Launched in 1998 in Bangalore, the Westside chain has, ever since, been setting the standards for other fashion retailers to follow. The Westside story really began in 1997, when the Tatas sold Lakme, their cosmetics business, to Hindustan Lever and acquired the Britain-based Littlewoods retail chain. A new entity called Trent Limited emerged from this move and Littlewoods was renamed Westside. Today Westside has seven outlets, one each in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi and Kolkata. And recently at Baroda and Ahmedabad too.
Westside stands out from the competition for a variety of reasons. One is that a majority of the brands the chain stocks and sells are its own, unlike retailers who store multiple labels. About 90 per cent of Westside´s offerings are home-grown, and they cater to different customer segments. The other 10 per cent includes toys, cosmetics and lingerie
Westside has recently expanded its range of merchandise by offering outfits from some of India´s best-known fashion designers, among them Wendell Rodericks, Anita Dongre, Krishna Mehta and Mona Pali. This is an interesting marketing shift, since it means moving away from the chain´s only-our-own-brands concept.
This is Westside´s response to the increasing demand in India for designer lines. Designer wear is really an aspiration product, and it is highly priced. They offer an affordable selection for weddings and parties, but since this is still a very small segment it was felt that it was better to bring in established designers rather than do it themselves."The designers create collections exclusively for the store, and the prices for these are hardly eye-popping (the Wendell Rodericks range starts at Rs 600). Westside has managed to obtain this exclusivity at a lower price because it has multiple outlets. Designer wear for them is really, to use the phrase, ´the cherry on the cake´.
SWOT Ana

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