India’s three largest conglomerates — Tata Group, Reliance Retail, and Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail — are quietly building a new consumer segment together: the mass market fashion buyer. The tool is affordable fashion. And the strategy, notably, has nothing to do with chasing the best addresses in town.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Zudio, Tata’s Trent-owned value fashion chain, currently operates 45 stores in West Bengal alone. To put that in perspective, Zudio operated 765 locations across 235 cities in India as of March 2025, with each new store requiring a capital investment of only Rs 3 to 4 crore — a deliberately lean model designed to scale fast without heavy financial commitment per location. In FY25, Zudio crossed a billion dollars in sales, with lifestyle and non-apparel accounting for over 20 percent of revenues.
Reliance Retail’s Yousta currently operates around 6 stores in West Bengal, with its first Kolkata outlet opening on Jessore Road in Madhyamgram and subsequent locations including Aurobindo Mall in Salkia. Yousta debuted in August 2023 with its first store at Sarath City Mall in Hyderabad and has since expanded to 15 states, with products priced below Rs 999 and most available for under Rs 499.
ABFRL’s OWND, the newest entrant in this space, currently has around 5 stores in West Bengal. Launched with its first store in Kalyan Nagar, Bengaluru, spanning 9,696 sq ft across multiple levels, OWND offers more than 10,000 styles starting from Rs 399 and is positioned squarely in the Gen Z value fashion segment. ABFRL has set a target to expand OWND to 100 stores by the end of the current financial year.
The Location Strategy That Property Owners Need to Study
Here is what deserves closer attention. None of these three brands are clustering their West Bengal stores around premium high streets or Grade-A malls in central Kolkata. The pattern is quite the opposite — stores are being placed in neighbourhood retail pockets, standalone high streets in suburban corridors, and secondary malls in markets that the traditional retail expansion playbook would have passed over entirely.
This is not an accident. Trent’s own management has stated that Zudio’s growth is backed by expanding its presence in micro-markets rather than heavy discounting or heavy marketing spending, with the company focused on accessibility and building a critical mass of presence to drive awareness organically. Yousta’s first Kolkata store was not in South Kolkata or Park Street — it was in Madhyamgram on Jessore Road, a high-density suburban corridor with strong working-class footfall. OWND’s West Bengal entries follow a similar logic.
The business case for this approach is straightforward. A new Zudio opening in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 location generates genuine local buzz — earned attention at scale — while the Rs 999 price point itself functions as a trust signal that sets consumer expectations without any advertising spend. When a store becomes the most significant retail arrival a neighbourhood has seen, it does not need a premium address. The location gains value because of the store, not the other way around.
What Real Estate Owners and Developers Should Take From This
The signal for property owners, mall operators, and retail real estate developers in West Bengal is clear. The three most established retail groups in India are demonstrating, through active investment, that Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations within the state — whether a secondary market in Hooghly, a satellite township on the outskirts of Asansol, or a suburban corridor in North 24 Parganas — can sustain organised fashion retail profitably and at scale.
Elara Capital has noted in its Trent report that while store openings in dense clusters may partially overlap with older locations, they will help drive higher wallet share across the catchment — signalling that these brands are deliberately building density rather than exclusivity.
For mall owners in secondary West Bengal markets who have found it difficult to attract anchor fashion tenants, the value fashion model opens a different kind of conversation. These brands are not looking for premium rents or marquee addresses. They are looking for catchment density, accessible leases, and the right square footage — typically between 7,000 and 12,000 sq ft in Zudio’s case.
The 45 Zudio stores across West Bengal are not a coincidence. They are proof of concept. Yousta and OWND are building along the same lines, slightly behind in store count. The question for property developers and mall operators in the state is not whether these brands will come to their markets. It is whether they will be ready when they do.
Sources: Trent Limited Annual Report FY2025, ABFRL official website (abfrl.com), Reliance Retail official page (relianceretail.com), Indian Retailer, Storyboard18, BW Marketing World, Business Standard, FashionNetwork India, Elara Capital via Business Standard, Zudio store locator (zudio.com).
