For almost ten years, India’s country’s largest conglomerate The Tata Group – who has their hands in just about every industry in India — has helped establish Zara locations and storefronts in India.
During that time, Tata has obviously witnessed the success that Zara has achieved not just in India, but worldwide. In that time, the Tata has created their own apparel brand called Westside that’s very much like Zara; quick trends and fast fashions in the form of Westside. The difference is that even the most expensive items inside a Westside are cheaper than most every item inside a Zara -where the price tags are often half of what Zara would normally charge.
Calling it “extreme fast fashion” in where the company can get runway designs into the hands of customers in less than two weeks The company plans an aggressive expansion to open no fewer than 40 Westside outlets per year all over India.
The same goes with Urban Revivo, a fast fashion chain that is proliferating all over the bigger cities in China. As of this count, they have over 200 storefronts across well-know cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and many more in smaller cities.
Though both WestSide and UR are looking to take market share away from Zara, there’s plenty of room for both considering that India and China have the world’s largest populations. In fact, a study was released by Cotton Lifestyle Monitor asserting that in just one short decade — by 2030, China will be the world’s biggest apparel market with India not far behind. Both countries can thank their GDP being significantly boosted by middle-class and upper-class households with a growing taste for higher end items.
