Aditya Birla Group’s Pantaloons is now venturing into children’s wear with the launch of ‘Pantaloons Kids’.
Pantaloons is currently piloting apparel and lifestyle stores for children in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Jabalpur, Kolkata and Chandanpur in West Bengal as it aims to take a chunk of the Rs 75,000 crore kidswear market, according to a report.
“We realized there is an actual shortage for kids’ shopping and this is true even in malls where there are over 70 stores catering to mens and womens wears. Even department stores are for adults largely,” Shital Mehta, Pantaloons Retail CEO said. The company decided to explore the opportunity after research showed there was no serious focus on the kidswear, category, he said.
This led to the launch of ‘Pantaloons Kids’ to target a market which has become one of the fastest growing apparel retail segments, expanding 25 per cent per annum on a like-to-like basis.
In January, Mahindra Retail announced a tie-up with US-based children’s clothing, gifts and accessories company Carter’s Inc. to bring the latter’s range to its chain of BabyOye stores across India.
In August last year, The Children’s Place (TCP), a 1.3 billion dollar US specialty retailer, opened its first store in Bengaluru in partnership with Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd. TCP has five stand-alone stores, besides seven shop-in-shops at department store chain Shoppers Stop. It plans to add 15 more stores during the fiscal 2017.
Another brand, US Polo Kids from the Arvind Lifestyle portfolio, will clock Rs.100 crore in revenue in fiscal 2017 within three years of launch, J. Suresh, managing director, Arvind Lifestyle said.
Even Gap, which Arvind Lifestyle launched in August in India, gets one-third of its overall revenue from the kidswear category.
