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February 12, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, Mint
Bengaluru, 6 February 2026
Global fragrance maker Bath & Body Works Inc. is betting on a reset to revive growth after years of heavy discounting and weak product innovation dulled its brand momentum across markets. The Columbus, Ohio-based retailer is pivoting to a “consumer-first” formula strategy centered around upgraded formulations, more disciplined marketing, and fewer promotions.
The reset matters as India is emerging as one of the company’s fastest-growing and best-performing markets and is also becoming a testing ground for how the brand evolves its retail model. India now ranks among Bath & Body Works’ top five international markets by growth.
“We’re seeing strong engagement across stores (in India), digital marketplaces and even quick commerce, which gives us confidence as we evolve the brand and introduce more innovation,” said Tony Garrison, global vice president at Bath & Body Works, in an interview with Mint.
The fragrance maker entered India in 2018 in partnership with Dubai-based Apparel Group and has since expanded to about 50 stores across major metros, while also building an online presence through platforms such as Nykaa, Myntra, and Amazon. Apparel Group brings over 80 global brands to India, including Victoria’s Secret, Charles & Keith, Aldo, Crocs, and Tim Hortons.
“We’re learning a lot from how the Indian consumer shops across platforms, especially the speed and convenience expectations,” Garrison said. “It’s helping us think differently about assortment, pack sizes and how we show up digitally”.
Even as discretionary spending softened, the brand’s franchise partner, Apparel Group, delivered double-digit sales growth in India and high single-digit comparable store gains in FY25. It reported a 26% year-on-year jump in FY25 revenue to ₹1,118 crore and a net profit of ₹20.5 crore, reversing a loss in the previous year.
Globally, Bath & Body Works’ earnings reflect soft consumer demand as well as margin pressures. Its revenue declined 1% to $1.59 billion in the third quarter of FY25, while net income fell 27% year-on-year to $577 million.
Reviving the fragrance engine
While legacy scents such as Japanese Cherry Blossom, Champagne Toast, and Thousand Wishes remain global blockbusters, the company admits it hasn’t produced enough new hits at a similar scale in recent years. Japanese Cherry Blossom is a $250 million fragrance.
“I think we haven’t done the best job of keeping up with some of the fragrance trends. We haven’t done a lot of innovation, and that’s what you’re going to see this year. This is a big change year for us,” Garrison said.
The company plans to elevate its home fragrance portfolio, bringing in more premium candle collections, gift-ready packaging, and deeper, more sophisticated scent profiles. The broader goal is to encourage shoppers to trade up within the brand rather than wait for markdowns. “We want customers to see the value in the product itself… not just the promotion,” Garrison said.
New retail formats
To test new retail formats, the company and Apparel Group plan to pilot a small “neighbourhood store” format of roughly 500 square feet in select non-metro markets later this year. These stores will focus heavily on core body care lines and hero fragrances, while creating a more discovery-led environment for first-time shoppers.
India is also emerging as a key market in testing how far premiumisation can go. Garrison noted that the company has not seen a slowdown locally: “India has actually been one of our strongest markets in the post-Covid period. Even when consumers are careful, they still spend on small luxuries that make them feel good”.
What experts say
Retail experts caution that the reset in India won’t be without challenges. Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, noted that brands often fall back on discounting when volumes don’t come through. He added that the personal care market has become intensely crowded, making brand clarity critical.
While the brand is leaning into quick commerce and smaller stores, Dutta cautioned that premium brands still need larger formats to build experience-led differentiation. “Neighbourhood stores can be spokes, but you still need the hub—the large store—to communicate the brand experience,” he said.
Race Intensifies
The turnaround plan comes at a time when rivals, including The Body Shop and Forest Essentials, are also vying for the Indian consumer’s wallet. The Body Shop plans to achieve ₹1,100 crore in revenue in India within the next three to five years. India’s fragrance market was valued at $1.0 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a 13.9% CAGR to $3.23 billion by 2033.
(Published in Mint)
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February 11, 2026
Vaeshnavi Kasthuril, Mint
Bengaluru, 11 February 2026
Sales of winter wear were underwhelming for the second year in a row as an unusually delayed and milder winter disrupted demand for heavy winter wear, particularly in north and west India, executives at two of India’s top clothing retailers said. Initial optimism for a bumper season this year compounded the disappointment for retailers.
While early signs of a La Niña—a weather pattern typically known for bringing freezing temperatures to India—triggered some early buying in the previous quarter, the season remained unusually mild, leaving stores with a surplus of winter clothing. Excess rainfall and cyclonic activity during the festive period in parts of eastern and southern India further weighed on seasonal buying, compounding the pressure on winter sales which are typically front-loaded.
This slump is particularly painful because winter sales are the industry’s largest annual driver. These months coincide with India’s massive wedding season, when spending peaks. Together, they account for roughly 20% of total yearly revenue for apparel companies, according to industry estimates. India’s apparel market was estimated to be worth more than ₹1.9 trillion in FY25, of which 41% was organised, credit ratings firm CareEdge said in January 2026.
V-Mart: margin over volume
Lalit Agarwal, managing director of V-Mart Retail, said, “Northern India saw a delayed or milder winter initially, leading to dispersed demand for heavy winter wear. Winter demand was definitely delayed a little bit—it didn’t get lost, but it was erratic.” He added that while festive demand held up, “demand visibility was uncertain, particularly in winter-led categories, and we consciously chose to protect margins rather than chase volumes.”
V-Mart’s revenue grew a little over 10% year-on-year to ₹1,126.4 crore in Q3 from ₹1,023.7 crore a year earlier and ₹889.05 crore in the third quarter of FY24, but this growth was largely driven by wedding and festive-season clothing, executives at the company said.
Anand Agarwal, chief financial officer of V-Mart Retail, said despite forecasts of a strong, early winter, “peak winters were delayed across North and West India, leading to a lull post-Diwali.” He added, “While the festive period went off reasonably well, winter demand did not pan out as anticipated,” attributing the softer sales to fewer peak winter days and unusually warmer temperatures.
Despite the delayed demand, the company managed to avoid a build-up of unsold inventory during the quarter. “Inventory health remained strong despite the delayed winter, and in some categories we were even short of inventory,” said Anand Agarwal, indicating that the eventual dip in temperatures led to a sudden pick-up in demand in select winter categories rather than excess stock.
Winter-led assortments continue to account for a sizeable share of the company’s quarterly sales, underscoring its sensitivity to weather patterns. “Winter and pre-winter categories accounted for about 40-45% of the overall mix during the quarter, and this share rose to over 60% during peak winter weeks in December,” said Agarwal during the third-quarter earnings call. The higher share of winter wear sales during peak weeks helped cushion margins, even as volumes remained below expectations. Lalit Agarwal said the company refrained from aggressive discounting amid uncertain demand. “Higher full-price sell-through during the winter quarter supported margins, as we did not undertake aggressive discounting,” he said.
Vishal Mega Mart: the late recovery
Gunender Kapur, managing director and chief executive officer of rival Vishal Mega Mart, said delayed winters usually force retailers to push promotions to ensure that they don’t carry forward all that merchandise, because the next opportunity to sell it would be the following year.
Despite this, the company’s performance held up, he said, highlighting that winter sales achieved robust double-digit same-store growth for the entire season and the full quarter, effectively overcoming the sluggish demand during December. Kapur noted that demand for winter clothing increased significantly in January, adding, “Winter merchandise is still selling well, both in our stores and in other stores, we believe.”
Vishal Mega Mart reported revenue growth of about 17% to ₹3,670.3 crore in Q3 FY26 from ₹3,135.9 crore in Q3 FY25 and ₹2,623.5 crore in Q3 FY24, largely on the back of wedding and festive-season demand.
Kapur said the company was unsure whether there would be significant unsold winter merchandise at the end of the season, adding that maintaining pricing discipline helped protect profit margins. “Merchandise that sells in December typically fetches a higher price than January merchandise for winter because sales often begin by late December or early January,” he said. “In our case, there was no problem. We achieved same-store sales growth of over 10%, even with the winter merchandise we purchased for the autumn-winter season.”
V2 Retail: the outlier
In contrast, V2 Retail recorded strong performance in the third quarter, largely driven by winter wear. Revenue surged nearly 60% year-on-year to ₹929.2 crore in Q3 from ₹590.9 crore a year earlier. This is perhaps because V-Mart and Vishal Mega Mart are more concentrated in north and central India, where winter demand was more uneven this season, while V2 has a stronger presence in eastern and north-eastern markets, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam.
Managing director Akash Agarwal said the early onset of winter led to a “very good season” for the company. He noted that winter garments typically command a much higher average selling price (ASP) than summer products, which resulted in a visible bump in average bill value during the third quarter, led by higher sales of jackets and sweaters. Agarwal said this high-ASP, high-margin category accounted for the bulk of Q3 sales and was a key driver of the company’s same-store sales growth.
A worsening problem?
Two straight years of sluggish sales because of erratic winters highlight broader challenges around climate change for apparel retailers, which peg their inventory based on weather patterns and demand.
“Seasons have always been inherently unpredictable, and retailers have never been able to forecast with certainty how cold or warm a winter will be or how long it will last,” said Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a consulting firm. However, he said that the challenge has intensified over the past 15-20 years as apparel businesses have scaled up and expanded their store footprints nationwide, stretching product development and supply chains over several months.
“No matter how hard you work on the plan, your forecast will always be wrong. You will either overshoot or undershoot,” Dutta said, adding that this leaves retailers grappling with either shortages or excess stock. Winterwear, he said, is particularly vulnerable because it has a higher value per unit, a much shorter selling window, and a smaller market, factors which together create a “humongous problem” for retailers.
Data from a World Meteorological Organisation report published on 16 January showed that 2025 was among the three warmest years on record worldwide, continuing a decade-long streak of exceptional heat despite the cooling La Niña phase. This is a clear sign that background warming from greenhouse gases is overwhelming natural variability, the report said. It suggested that climate change will intensify seasonal shifts and extreme weather in the years and decades ahead, making industries tied to seasonal patterns, such as winter apparel, increasingly vulnerable to unpredictable weather swings and weaker cold spells.
(Published in Mint)
admin
January 28, 2026
What does it actually take to build a fashion brand in India?
This panel (“Beyond the Noise- How D2c Fashion Brands Are Reinventing Retail”) at the 25th Edition of India Fashion Forum focussed on some real answers, in a refreshing, down-to-earth conversation moderated by Devangshu Dutta (Founder, Third Eyesight), with the founders of DeMoza (Agnes Raja George), The Mom Store (Surbhi Bhatia), Miraggio (Mohit Jain), BeyondBound (Tejasvi Madan), and Bari (Sameer Khan Lodhi).
No fluff, no “disrupting the industry” talk. Just founders being honest about what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what they’d do differently. A few things that struck a chord:
• Every single brand started because the founder couldn’t find something they personally wanted: inclusive activewear, affordable handbags that didn’t look cheap, good maternity wear. Sometimes the simplest observation is the best business idea.
• Inventory management came up often. One founder took their inventory cycle from 6 months down to 4. Another re-shuffles stock every 15 days based on what’s selling where. Unglamorous? Yes, but this is what actually keeps a business alive.
• The marketing conversation highlighted a move away from traditional advertising toward things that actually make people feel something. One founder talked about turning a farmhouse into a full “apricot colour” experience for customers. Another shoots content with real customers, not influencers.
• And the most memorable line of the whole discussion came from the most experienced founder in the room sharing a learning: “I won’t open stores fast.” No explanation needed, really.
Building a brand is exciting. Keeping it alive is the harder, quieter work. This panel was a good reminder of that. Worth a watch if you’re building something in this space.
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December 29, 2025
Yash Bhatia, Impact Magazine
29 December 2025
App, Tap, Pay and Zoom it’s delivered – that is Quick commerce for you. And in India, the narrative has so far been defined by speed, scale, high SKU counts, and the dominance of dark stores. Last week, however, Instamart nudged that model by opening an experiential store in Gurugram, allowing consumers to see and feel select products available on the platform.
The Bengaluru-based company has positioned the outlet not as a conventional retail store, but as a compact experiential format with a sharply curated assortment of around 100–200 SKUs, compared to the 15,000–20,000 SKUs typically housed in a dark store. Spanning roughly 400 sq. ft., the space is about one-tenth the size of a standard 4,000 sq. ft. dark store.
Under this model, sales proceeds are paid directly to sellers. This differs from Instamart’s regular arrangement, where payments are routed through the platform and later settled with sellers after deducting the platform’s share. IMPACT reached out to Instamart for further details, but the company declined to comment.
Sources close to the development say that Instamart has enabled sellers to open branded experiential stores in and around residential societies as part of a targeted consumer experiment. These are not conventional retail outlets, but compact experiential formats with a highly curated SKU assortment, focused on categories where consumers prefer to assess the products first-hand before purchasing, such as fresh fruits, vegetables, pulses, new product launches, and selected D2C brands. The initiative is largely centred on fresh categories and allows sellers to experiment with Instamart’s branding and service ecosystem.
Devangshu Dutta, Founder, Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy firm, says that physical presence plays a vital role in anchoring trust, particularly in premium products, groceries, and fresh produce. “Experiencing a product or brand physically can significantly enhance perceived value and help create stickiness. For this reason, offline stores continue to remain integral to the consumer products sector,” he explains.
Built on the promise of speed and convenience, quick commerce brands have come under growing scrutiny for quality and hygiene lapses at dark stores. Over the past year, several reports have flagged issues ranging from poor storage conditions and compromised freshness to the sale of expired or damaged products, particularly in food and grocery categories.
In some instances, regulatory inspections have led to licence suspensions after authorities identified hygiene violations at fulfilment centres. “Trust is what builds loyalty, and the shift is clearly moving from minutes to confidence,” says Shankar Shinde, Co-Founder, Aisles and Shelves, a behaviour-led brand consultancy in India. Shinde adds that the emergence of offline formats such as Instamart’s physical store aligns with this transition, particularly in grocery and fresh categories where consumers place a high premium on quality and consistency. “Physical touchpoints help reduce consumer anxiety, especially in a market like India, where shoppers still prefer hand-picked fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables,” he explains.
Against this backdrop, the opening of experiential centres could emerge as one way for quick commerce players to rebuild consumer trust by allowing shoppers to experience products in person before purchasing. IMPACT also reached out to Blinkit and Zepto for their views, but both declined to comment.
Kushal Bhatnagar, Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants, believes the move is aimed at unlocking incremental growth by tapping into offline-first consumers who are not yet active on quick commerce, while also catering to the offline purchase missions of existing quick commerce users. He notes that quick commerce currently reaches only about 75–80 million annual transacting users as of CY2025, even as over 90% of India’s grocery consumption continues to take place offline.
Beyond expanding reach, Bhatnagar sees offline formats as a way to address deeper trust barriers within the category. He adds that such formats can help deepen consumer confidence, particularly in categories where apprehensions around quality and freshness persist in quick commerce deliveries, concerns that are partly alleviated when consumers can experience products first-hand. Additionally, he points out that this approach benefits brands, especially emerging ones that are largely confined to quick commerce or a limited set of platforms, by giving them greater physical retail visibility without requiring heavy investment in traditional distribution networks.
Viewed through a financial lens, the move also carries implications for how quick commerce platforms justify value. Saurabh Parmar, fractional CMO, believes the initiative signals a shift from promise to performance, with a stronger emphasis on optimisation and a more realistic assessment of long-term value creation. He notes that while quick commerce has expanded into Tier 2 markets and seen growth in user numbers, these metrics alone still fall short of fully justifying current valuations. In this context, an offline presence becomes another lever to strengthen the overall business case.
At the same time, Parmar cautions that offline formats cannot replace the core proposition of quick commerce. He adds that experiential centres enhance brand credibility and make quick commerce feel closer to conventional retail, with the potential to eventually extend into other facets of e-commerce. However, he emphasises that quick commerce must continue to remain the frontline, as the sector’s valuations are fundamentally anchored in its speed-led proposition.
Retail experts, meanwhile, view physical touchpoints as a long-standing mechanism for building trust rather than a structural shift.
Dutta adds that such formats complement existing digital trust mechanisms such as delivery consistency, speed, ratings, and reviews by making brands feel tangible and accountable rather than abstract.
Bhatnagar notes that quick commerce currently has an average monthly transacting user base of around 40 million as of CY2025, leaving significant headroom for growth when compared to India’s overall e-commerce base of nearly 300 million active transacting users.
Beyond expanding the user base, he adds that experiential stores can also support wallet-share expansion across categories, which remains a key growth lever for the sector. “Non-grocery segments such as beauty and personal care, electronics, and fashion currently contribute about 25% of quick commerce GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), a share that is expected to rise further. Within groceries as well, platforms can drive incremental growth by building greater depth in fresh produce and staples,” Bhatnagar highlights.
From an operational perspective, however, the offline format is viewed more as a supporting layer than a core growth engine. Dutta sees Instamart’s offline presence as an experimental add-on rather than a replacement for its delivery-led model. The operating processes and economics differ significantly from those of quick commerce delivery, positioning physical formats as a complement to the speed proposition rather than an alternative. If the model proves viable and is backed by sufficient resources, it could eventually lead to a parallel scale-up of dark stores and experiential formats across different catchments.
For now, Instamart’s offline foray remains a tightly scoped experiment rather than a strategic pivot. Its significance lies less in square footage and more in what it signals about the evolving priorities of quick commerce. As the category matures, speed alone may no longer be sufficient to secure trust, loyalty, or long-term value. Experiential touchpoints, if deployed selectively, could help platforms bridge the gap between digital convenience and physical reassurance, particularly in categories where quality perception continues to remain fragile.
(Published in IMPACT)
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November 27, 2025
Viveat Susan Pinto, Financial Express
November 27, 2025
Several of the country’s top retailers, malls and brands have kicked off a shopping extravaganza on the occasion of Black Friday, offering steep discounts across product categories.
A Western import, the day which symbolises the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the US, the UK and Europe, gained popularity in India over the past two years as a crucial sale window after Diwali.
Domestic retailers, say experts, are using this period to exhaust existing inventory at steep discounts as they gear up for the winter season.
This year, discounts are up to 60-80% across fashion, lifestyle, electronics and cosmetics, higher than the 50% seen last year. E-tailers such as Ajio have pushed the pedal even harder, offering as much as 85-90% on denims, jackets and select products during the sale this year.
Bigger Deals, Longer Duration
“Retailers in India are building Black Friday as an important off-season peak. The participation of brands is growing, deals are getting bigger and the sale days are more,” Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive of Third Eyesight, a Gurugram-based retail consultancy, said. That is visible from the intense promotional activity this year. What began as a flash sale event a couple of years ago has now extended to a week-long sale period this year, experts said.
Pushpa Bector, senior executive director and business head, DLF Retail, said that brands this year are ready with strong offers, driven in part by GST cuts and a stable economic outlook. “Early trends show healthy interest across categories by consumers. We expect a strong double-digit uplift over the Black Friday period, setting us up for a strong close to the year,” she said.
Retailer Strategies
While Black Friday typically falls on the last Friday of November, some retailers such as Flipkart, Croma, Vijay Sales, Nykaa and Tata Cliq have kicked off their Black Friday sales last week itself to build on the excitement. For electronic retailers, said Nilesh Gupta, director, Vijay Sales, Black Friday will extend into Cyber Monday next week (falling on December 1), making it even more relevant for them to focus on the occasion.
“We’ve been building Black Friday as a retail property in the last few of years as it fills the post-Diwali void quite well. Black Friday also extends well into Cyber Monday which comes immediately after. While we started with a few categories in the initial years, we now have offers across all our segments. Discounts are up to 45-50% this year in line with last year,” he said.
Rival Croma is also offering up to 50% discount on products this year, executives said.
“Black Friday has become one of India’s most anticipated shopping moments. At Croma, we are focused on delivering value across categories with steal deals, bundled savings, and limited-time offers,” Croma’s CEO & MD Shibashish Roy said.
Croma will also introduce a special late-night shopping window on November 28 at select stores across India. For two hours—from 10 pm to 11:59 pm —these stores will remain open with exclusive additional discounts on some of the season’s most in-demand products.
Nishank Joshi, chief marketing officer, Nexus Select Malls, said it is elevating the Black Friday experience with bigger assured gifts, giveaways and reward points if consumers upload their bills on their Nexus One apps.
Mayank Lalpuria, director, marketing (north, central & west) at Phoenix Mills, which operates Phoenix malls, said that it was expecting double-digit year-on-year growth and strong footfalls during the Black Friday period.
Tanu Prasad, CEO – Malls, Oberoi Realty, said that the firm was seeing far more planned purchases towards premium products and a rise in family-oriented outings. “We are anticipating an encouraging response at the (Black Friday) weekend resulting in a strong kick-off to the (December) shopping season,” Prasad said.
Direct-to-consumer brands such as Inc.5 footwear and NEWME said that they have rolled out big deals for Black Friday. “We’re looking at a 30x surge in orders across both offline and online for Black Friday,” NEWME Co-founder & CEO Sumit Jasoria said.
“Our customers look forward to Black Friday, and this year, we’re excited to bring fresh new launches, curated edits, and our widest range yet,” Rajesh Kadam, CEO, Inc.5 Footwear, said.
(Published in Financial Express)
