This document discusses the history and marketing strategy of Westside, a retail chain owned by the Tata Group. [1] It provides an overview of Westside's introduction, expansion across India, and product categories. [2] The marketing discussion covers their research, 4P's approach including pricing, promotion, place and product placement strategies. [3] A SWOT analysis identifies strengths in brands, locations and quality products, but weaknesses in product range and stock availability.

2. To be covered….
• Introduction
• Marketing Research
• 4 P’s
• SWOT analysis
• Conclusion

3. INTRODUCTION
1952 Tata entered the cosmetics business through Lakme ltd
1996 Lakme entered into joint venture with Hindustan lever
1997 Tata Sold their stake in Lakme to HLL for Rs. 2 billion
1998 The Tata’s ventured into retailing and acquired the Britain-based Littlewoods retail store
in Bangalore
1999 Westside expanded its operations to Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
2000 During the Diwali season, Westside launched a festival of delights program
2001 It had a second store in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Delhi. It had average sales of
above Rs.5000 per sq. feet
2002 Store in Nagpur and second store in Delhi and signed Yuvraj Singh as his celebrity
endorser.

4. Marketing Research
• Conducted market research for entering into new city
• It was found that the ratio of store owned brands to other brands was 30:70
• Indian retailers suffered on the account of economics and brand building as
compared to international retailers
• Took support from various Tata group of Companies
• Initially started of with “Fashion at affordable price”

5. 4 P’s
1. Price
2. Promotion
3. Place
4. Placement

6. Product Strategy
• Categorized into 2 divisions,- Apparel & Product division
• Product Division generally dealt with household accessories while Apparel Division dealt
with the clothing line.
• Each class had a sub class and each sub class had a line,which specified design, colour,
size etc
• All 7 depts.offered complete range and every store has a stock of 30,000 SKU’s of various
prods.

7. Product Statements
• Had to face many problems like
- Real estate
- Availability of spacious shopping area
- Competition from stopper’s stop and Globus
- Competition with other retail fashion business such as Wills Sport,
Raymond’s, Nike, Mango, Marks and Spencer

8. Pricing Strategy
• Pricing decisions consistent with firm’s marketing Strategy
• Dealing ratio of self owned brands to other brands is 30:70
• Helps to augment their sales margin
• Aimed to target all the customer groups

9. Pricing (contd…)
Types of Pricing :
- Promotional disconts
- Seasonal Discounts
- Image Pricing
- Value pricing

10. Place Strategy
• Mainly functioning in malls
• Mostly located near to its competitors
• Products distributed from Mumbai HQ
• Stock replenishment done mainly on Fridays
• Product availability depends on city of operations
• Opening of special stores for women as they are the most loyal customer
base for them.

11. Promotion Strategy
• Promoting in-house brands with some space for international brands
• Tie up with some renowed deigners
• Club west card membership to retain customers
• Theme based stores ( like Westside Women)
• Advertisement campaign

12. SWOT analysis

13. STRENGTH’S WEAKNESS
• Growing at a faster pace
• Brand name of Tata’s
• Good customer base • Not much product range for middle class
• Attractive promotional schemes and huge • Lack of differentiation
discounts • Poor inventory turns & stockavailability
• Quality and branded stuff
• Location advantage

14. OPPOURTINITY THREATS
• Huge untapped market • Competition from organized retail
• Rising disposable income players
• urbanization • Competition from local retailers

15. Conclusion
• It should spend on media promotion
• Westside should hire an appropriate brandambassador depending on the type
of customer base they are targeting
• Should try to increase their theme based shops
• Positioning need to be done more efficiently

16. Conclusion (contd)
• Should work more other than apparels and home products
• Should enhance more upon umbrella marketing widening the area between
the particular group of customers
• Should enhance more on promotional ideas and discounts
• Should add more brands following niche marketing concept

17. References
• www.mywestside.com
• www.wikipedia.com
• www.esnipes.com
• www.indiaretailing.com
• www.tata.com