Arvind Ltd is bringing The Children's Place (TCP), the largest American kids speciality apparel retailer, to India.
Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd, a subsidiary of Arvind, has entered into a franchise arrangement with TCP and expects to open its first retail store in Bangalore by mid-2015.
“The Children’s Place will be the first-of-its-kind retail format in India. It will be a one-stop-shop for children from infants to 14-year-olds,” said Sanjay Lalbhai, Chairman and Managing Director of Arvind.
“We are looking to open four stores in top cities, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, next year,” said Suresh J, Managing Director and CEO of Arvind Lifestyle Brands.
Subsequently, the company will target other large cities and towns and plans to roll out about 50 stores over the next five years.
“We plan to invest about ₹4 crore in each of these stores,” Suresh said.
Arvind will be sourcing the entire merchandise from the North American firm that designs, contracts to manufacture, sells and licenses to sell under ‘The Children’s Place’, ‘Place’ and ‘Baby Place’ brands.
Suresh said Arvind sees huge opportunity in the branded apparels market for kids and plans to make it big in this segment.
The children’s apparel market in India is estimated at around ₹50,000 crore, but is highly fragmented.
The share of branded players is pegged at 4 per cent, or ₹2,000 crore.
Shares of Arvind ended marginally higher at ₹252.75 on the BSE on Thursday, while the benchmark Sensex gained 0.17 per cent to end trade at 26,360.11 points.
Early this week, Arvind had announced its foray into e-commerce with the launch of its custom clothing brand Creyate.