The first store under Broadway, the theatre-style department store format founded by Vivek Biyani, will open in August this year in Delhi’s Ambience Mall and will be followed by two more outlets in Hyderabad in September and Mumbai in March 2025, it was revealed at a launch today. The target customers for the stores are Gen Z and Alpha.
Apart from Biyani, other investors in the venture are actor Rana Daggubati, serial investor Apurva Salarpuria and Anuj Kejriwal of Anarock. Biyani did not reveal the locations of the stores in Mumbai and Hyderabad but said that they would be standalone stores at highstreets. Sources said that the store is likely to be located in Bandra in Mumbai.
Store concept
No details were revealed regarding the funding and how much had been contributed by the investors. Think9, which provides brand development services and has Kishore Biyani’s daughters on its board, is also part of the venture. It is involved in brand development services and uses data science, digital ethnography, and technology platforms to help entrepreneurs to build brands.
The department stores under Broadway would have a floor space of 25,000-35,000 square feet and anything from 100-200 brands, depending on the store size.
Most of the brands who Biyani has signed on are new age companies and heavily weighted towards the beauty, and personal care segment. There are brands such as Plush, Minimalist, Vinci Botanicals, Honasa Consumer’s DermaCo, Belif, Wellbeing Nutrition, Kapiva, Oziva, The Good Bug, Comet, Suta, Mokobara, trueBrowns, Bold Care and The Label Life. Biyani said that majority of the brands were Indian.
Ventures
Brands can get space in the department stores in pop-up style, and new ones can take their place the idea being to break the monotony of physical retail and keep the novelty quotient high.
With the aim of being interactive and allow brands to ‘talk’ to customers, the stores would have around 10-20 live events daily. Brands can have fashion shows, makeovers, experiments, while there could be chats with founders and workshops to spread awareness. Customers can also get personalised advice and help from stylists and dermatologists.
There will be a digital and online component to this as well.
Unlike in malls, there will not be any anchor brand as such. Biyani said Foodstories, the venture launched by his cousins Avni and Ashni Biyani, will also find space at his stores.