admin
June 12, 2026
Aanya Thakur & Writankar Mukherjee, Economic Times
12 June 2026, Mumbai/Kolkata
India’s leading retail chains have seen the share of e-commerce in total sales either remain flat or edge up by a sluggish 1-2 percentage points over the past four-five years despite a sustained push towards omnichannel retailing.
An ET analysis of eight major retailers-market leader Reliance Retail, Shoppers Stop, Westside, Arvind Fashions, DMart, Spencer’s Retail, Pantaloons and Bata-showed that the contribution of e-commerce to overall revenue has seen minuscule improvement since 2021-22 even as online sales continue to increase in absolute terms. By contrast, the Covid-19 pandemic spurred explosive growth, with the share of digital sales in total revenue surging three to four times in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
Industry executives attribute the slowdown partly to lower investment levels compared with pure-play digital firms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy and Blinkit-parent Eternal. Besides, retailers have consistently maintained that they will not pursue online growth at the expense of profitability, keeping prices largely aligned across online and offline channels.
The ET study found Tata-owned Westside’s online contribution stood at 7% in 2021-22 and thereafter remained around 6% till 2025-26. Reliance Retail’s online share ranged between 17% and 19% during the period, while Bata’s remained at 10-12%.
For DMart, e-commerce accounted for 5-6% of sales, while Shoppers Stop’s online arm, Shoppers Stop.Com (India) Ltd, contributed less than 1% to the consolidated revenue between 2021-22 and 2024-25. The company has not disclosed 2025-26 online sales figures yet.
“The DNA of these retailers is rooted in the physical world-infrastructure, processes and systems are not inherently designed for e-commerce, which requires a different operating model,” said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of consultancy Third Eyesight.
“Most retailers calling themselves omnichannel are effectively multi-channel. Online retail is capital-intensive and hyper-competitive. Given the significant scope for physical store expansion, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, retailers are reluctant to invest aggressively online,” he said.
Even so, Avenue Supermarts, which runs DMart, invested Rs 150 crore in online grocery platform DMart Ready this week, following a Rs 174-crore infusion a year earlier.
By comparison, Eternal infused Rs 2,600 crore into Blinkit in 2025 and another Rs 450 crore in March this year. Similarly, Swiggy approved a Rs 1,000-crore investment in supply-chain subsidiary Scootsy last year as both companies expanded their dark-store networks.
The chief executive of Aditya Birla-owned departmental chain Pantaloons, Sangeeta Tanwani, recently told analysts that online sales accounted for just 3-4% of the business. She said the company had earlier refrained from investing in the channel because profitability remained elusive.
“But over the last year, we called out omnichannel as one of our priorities… The reason why we had paused that business was because we wanted to make sure that we can get the unit economics right and make this business profitable… With all the shifts we have made this year, we feel confident of scaling up this business,” Tanwani said.
Reliance Retail, meanwhile, reported lower earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin growth in both the January-March quarter and entire 2025-26 as investments in quick commerce weighed on profitability. Chief financial officer Dinesh Taluja recently told analysts that margins depend on the pace at which online and business-to-business segments grow relative to the core offline business.
“If we slow down online growth, margins will improve. It is a mix as far as the online business continues to grow faster,” he had said.
An industry executive said the online contribution may go up modestly in this financial year due to high investment in scaling up dark stores for quick commerce.
Queries emailed to Reliance Retail did not elicit a response till press time. The company had in December last year appointed former Flipkart executive Jeyandran Venugopal as its new chief executive for the retail business.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
May 25, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, MINT
Bengaluru, 25 May 2026
Value fashion retailers across the country are likely to face margin pressure in the upcoming quarters as rising crude oil prices are driving up the cost of polyester and other fabrics. Executives at V-Mart Retail Ltd, Vishal Mega Mart Ltd, and Kewal Kiran Clothing Ltd (KKCL) said crude oil-linked inflation has begun to push up yarn and sourcing costs across apparel and general merchandise categories, with the full impact expected to play out over the next few months.
Value fashion retailers face a double whammy: their heavy reliance on polyester and synthetic blends exposes them to crude-linked inflation, while their price-sensitive customer base leaves little room to pass on rising costs without hurting demand.
Apparel contributes about 22.8% of the overall revenue of the country’s largest retailer, DMart, in FY26. Rising polyester and fabric prices could also weigh on this share, which has been declining since FY20.
“We see almost 60% to 70% consumption of polyester yarn or poly-based product lines, which have or will get impacted,” said Lalit Agarwal during the company’s March-quarter earnings call. Agarwal said that yarn prices had already risen sharply in recent weeks. “There is a rise of almost 10% to 15% in the yarn prices, which effectively converts to almost 5% to 7% in the apparel prices,” he said.
“Cost increases are at multiple points. One, of course, is raw material, which is not only fabric, but also polyester buttons, thread, packaging, all of that,” Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a consulting firm, said. “Because with value, you cannot really pass on the price hikes so readily to the consumer.”
Dutta said that lower- and middle-income consumers were already under financial stress from broader inflationary pressures, “so, they will not be able to absorb price hikes as easily as well.”
Ebitda margins in Q4FY26 are 10.9% for V-Mart Retail, 13.6% for Vishal Mega Mart and 19.1% for Kewal Kiran Clothing.
Double whammy for value segment
Gunender Kapur, CEO of Vishal Mega Mart, during the company’s March-quarter earnings call, said the inflationary impact had started becoming visible towards the end of April and would likely intensify in the coming months.
Despite rising input costs, retailers said they are avoiding broad-based price hikes on entry-level products amid fragile demand conditions in the value segment.
Entry-level products for these retailers range from ₹199 to ₹399, with some going up to ₹1,500.
“We would never tinker with the opening price points and the lower price points in these difficult times, because those are the customers who are the most vulnerable in inflationary situations,” Kapur said.
Hemant Jain, CEO of KKCL, said the company was willing to absorb part of the pressure on profitability to protect revenues and market share.
Jain also said the company had not yet implemented price hikes despite the inflationary environment.
To cushion the impact, companies said they are increasingly relying on cost optimisation, fabric innovation, premium fashion products and deeper expansion into smaller towns to sustain growth.
V-Mart said it was attempting to offset part of the inflation through alternative fabric usage, sourcing efficiencies and tighter inventory planning.
The retailer has also blocked orders in advance and is utilising existing yarn and fabric inventories available with vendors to soften the immediate impact of rising prices.
Vishal Mega Mart’s Kapur said it has revived cost-saving measures from the post-Ukraine cotton inflation cycle, including replacing cartons with gunny bags, removing polybags from some apparel categories, and shipping footwear without outer cartons.
The retailer has also increased the use of computer-aided design systems to reduce fabric waste during cutting.
Premium products, private labels offer buffer
These value retailers are also increasingly depending on premium and higher-fashion assortments, where consumers are relatively less price sensitive, to absorb selective price increases while keeping entry-level products affordable.
Kapur said Vishal Mega Mart’s large private-label portfolio, which contributes over 74% of its revenue, gives it greater flexibility to manage pricing pressure while maintaining discounts against national brands.
KKCL on the other hand, said it would absorb part of the inflationary impact rather than immediately pass on higher costs to consumers.
These retailers are also increasingly leaning on expansion into smaller towns and deeper markets to drive incremental growth as discretionary spending in larger urban centres remains uneven.
Value fashion retailers have underperformed the broader market amid growing concerns over rising input costs and margin pressure. Shares of V-Mart Retail, V2 Retail Ltd, Vishal Mega Mart and Kewal Kiran Clothing have fallen between 4% and 11% on a year-to-date basis, while the benchmark BSE rose 6.1% during the same period.
(Published in MINT)
admin
May 15, 2026
The ET Now Swadesh panel discussion focussed on the dual challenge facing the Indian economy: a weakening rupee and rising crude oil prices, which together are driving “imported inflation” and straining household budgets. Devangshu Dutta (Founder, Third Eyesight) put forth the following key points during the discussion (the video link is under the text summary below):
1. Dual Impact on Industry and Consumers:
2. Vulnerability of Small Businesses (SMEs):
3. Income vs. Expenditure Strain:
4. Ripple Effect of Crude Oil Beyond Logistics:
5. Shifts in Consumer Spending Patterns & “Shrinkflation”:
The panel noted that while the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has adequate foreign exchange reserves to defend the rupee temporarily, the definitive solution relies heavily on the cooling down of global geopolitical tensions (such as the Middle East conflict affecting the Strait of Hormuz). Until then, Indian consumers will need careful financial planning and smart spending adjustments to navigate this inflationary phase. [Video below.]
admin
May 9, 2026
Writankar Mukherjee, Economic Times
Kolkata, 9 May 2026
India’s top retail chains including Reliance Retail, DMart, Trent, Titan Company, Jubilant FoodWorks, and V-Mart Retail opened the highest number of stores in three years in FY26, seeking to capitalise on a demand recovery and a clean-up of unviable outlets added during the post-Covid revenge-spending period.
Entry into smaller towns and cities where many consumers continue to prefer shopping at physical stores over online is also influencing the expansion plans.
An ET study of the 10 largest listed retailers showed they added 25% more stores in the last fiscal year compared to FY25. Additions are on a net basis after accounting for loss-making outlet closures.
Collectively, the retailers added 2,182 stores in FY26, equivalent to six new stores a day on a net basis. In comparison, they added 1,745 stores in FY25 and 1,865 in FY24.
Retailers attributed the store expansion spree to improving consumer sentiment, helped further by cuts in income tax and goods and services tax (GST) rates last fiscal, along with low penetration of organised retail in smaller towns and cities. Together, the ten retailers had 31,394 stores operational as of March 2026.
Expansion Set to Continue
V-Mart Retail chief executive officer Lalit Agarwal said the ongoing shift from unorganised to organised retail is fuelling this expansion as several companies are meeting their sales growth expectations. “Many retailers have also raised capital, which they are deploying to grow topline,” he said, adding that the “growth phase will continue in the current fiscal as well.”
Companies surveyed by ET also include Shoppers Stop, Westlife Foodworld, V2 Retail and Kalyan Jewellers. Together, the ten retailers had 31,394 stores operational as of March 2026. Their combined store count grew 7% in FY26, ahead of a 6% expansion in the year before.
Reliance Retail alone added 820 net stores last fiscal, rebounding from a slowdown in FY25 when it shut several unviable outlets that were opened immediately post Covid, impacting overall industry growth rates. The country’s largest retailer had added 504 net stores in FY25, 796 in FY24, and 2,844 in FY23.
Similarly, Tata-owned Titan added 532 stores in FY23, but expansion moderated to 280-290 stores annually in FY25 and FY26.
India’s retail industry saw hyper expansion in late FY22 and FY23 as retailers sought to tap a boom in post-pandemic revenge shopping.
“Retail expansion now is more organic and measured as compared to the post Covid phase when there was a huge backlog of demand and over expansion,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder and CEO at Third Eyesight, a consultancy in consumer space.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
May 6, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, MINT
Mumbai, 6 May 2026
Fashion retailers are speeding up deliveries to keep pace with instant-gratification shopping driven by quick-fashion startups, with established players and newer brands taking sharply different approaches.
For example, brands such as Biba and The House of Rare have adopted a more calibrated, infrastructure-led strategy rather than a rapid overhaul of existing store networks. “We’ve been doing this in a very soft way but not necessarily from the same stores because that affects the customer experience,” said Siddharth Bindra, managing director of Biba. Bindra said using retail stores as fulfilment hubs for rapid delivery creates operational constraints, particularly given store sizes and layouts. “We don’t have very large stores; they are anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet. So that’s not the right efficiency,” he said.
Instead, the brand is evaluating a hub-based model in cities with higher store density, enabling faster deliveries without disrupting stone operations. “If we do, it will be though proper hubs in cities where we have four to five stores, where we would start with quick commerce and accelerate it,” he said. This could enable same-day or two to three-hour deliveries.
The House of Rare, which houses Rare Rabbit (men’s urban fashion) and Rareism (women’s fashion), is adopting a similar approach, evaluating city-levee fulfilment hubs in markets with higher store concentrations to enable faster deliveries while keeping retail outlets focused on walk-in consumers.
The strategy reflects a broader attempt among legacy retallers to belance speed with experience, rather than treating stores as Interchangeable logistics nodes. “The eventual goal is the customer, but it creates a lot of difference in the customer experience” Bindra said, pointing to the trade-offs involved.
Different take
In contrast, some brands are moving more aggressively to integrate stones directly into fulfilment networks.
Libas, an initial public offering (IPO)-bound apparel company, is networking its operating model to plug its physical retail network Into a faster, hyperlocal delivery system.
Earlier, the 12-year-old company followed a more traditional structure. Online orders were largely fulfilled from central warehouses and delivered over a few days, while stores primarily served walk-in customers, with the two channels operating independently.
That is now changing. Libas is using its stores and nearby warehouses as local fulfilment points, allowing it to service orders within a much smaller delivery radius,
“At Libas, the time frame will be approximately 60-90 minutes at the max,” said Bhavay Pruthi, senior vice president, e-commerce and product management.
The rollout has been gradual, starting with select cities and limited catchments, typically within a 7-10km radius, where delivery timelines can be tightly controlled. It has also narrowed the product mix initialy to itams that are easier to move quickly.
The push comes as consumer expectations around delivery timelines extend beyond groceries into fashion, forcing brands to rethink supply-chain design,
Rise of quick fashion
The urgency to adapt is being shaped by a surge in quick fashion startups that are attracting investor attention despite heavy cash burm.
The segment has seen a flurry of funding in recent months, with Zilo raising $15.3 million in February led by Peak XV, and Knot securing $5 million in a round led by 12 Flags in December.
It has also evolved rapidly. Quick-commerce platforms such as Zepto, Instamart and Blinkit initially offered a limited range of basic fashion items for last-minute purchases. This has since expanded into a more specialized category, with vertical players offering wider assortments across party, work and occasion wear with rapid delivery timelines.
New entrants are pushing the model further. Wydo, for instance, promises deliveries within 15 to 30 minutes in Bengaluru, while Gen Z-focused offerings such as Newme’s Zip and Snitch Quick are building businesses around near-instant fashion access.
Myntra’s rapid commerce division, M-Now, accounted for about 10% of orders in the locations where it was available as of last November.
“This is the new kind of experience that customers are expecting,” Pruthi said.
Libas is working with third-party logistics providers and quick commerce platforms for the last-mile delivery, while focusing internally on faster picking, packing and order routing. Quick commerce currently accounts for about 2% of its overall sales, with scope to grow as the model scales..
Early results, however, highlight the trade-offs. “We saw very good sell-throughs for e-commerce, but it was cannibalizing existing store sales,” Pruths said.
There are also fimits to what customers are willing to buy through rapid-delivery channels. “Customers do not have the confidence to spend 15,000 for a fashion product from a quick- commerce channel,” he said.
To address this, Libas has tightened delivery radii, curated a more suitable product mix, and is testing stores with attached dark-store infrastructure to balance walk-in and online demand.
Experts say these challenges are structural.
“If you look at fashion, it’s extremely unpredictable, and if you are a brand across multiple products, it’s complicated process,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of management consulting firm Third Eyesight.
While demand for faster deliveries is rising, it remains a small slice of the overall market, with profitability still uncertain due to limited assortments and high fulfilment costs. For traditional retailers, adopting the model requires a fundamental reworking of supply chains that were not built for near-instant delivery, Dutta added.
(Published in MINT)
