Daybreak - Reliance Trends, Pantaloons, and the shopping spree that never came

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Post-pandemic, retail giants like Reliance and Aditya Birla Fashion were ready to bounce back and they weren’t being very subtle about it. Reliance Retail for instance opened nearly 6000 stores across fashion, groceries, electronics just in FY22 and FY23. But the retail dream of a booming post-Covid shopping spree that companies had sold themselves never really happened. Soon these companies had to hit rewind. Thousands of jobs were gone and hundreds of stores had to be closed down. Turns out, India’s fashion retail scene is scrambling for a reset.But what exactly went wrong? Why did giants like Reliance, Aditya Birla, and Shoppers Stop stumble? And what’s the new playbook they’re following to survive?Tune in.To apply to The Ken's podcast team, click here

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Ramon Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first video. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. S's new job at a reliance trend store right next to the Kashi Vishunat temple in Varanasi was supposed to be a jackpot. Millions of wizters meant millions of potential sales. But everything turned out to be quite different for them.

The store was quiet, targets weren't being met, and the manager was angry and unpredictable. Just looking for someone to blame. Every day S would watch some staff or the other be publicly humiliated. But S hung on and then came the shock. S was laid off in the middle of the festival season when business should have been actually booming. And that's when the truth started to come out.

You see, this wasn't about S. It was about an industry that had, The retail dream of a booming post-COVID shopping spree that companies like Reliance had sold themselves never really happened. They built and expanded and hired like never before and then they had to hit rewind. Thousands of jobs were gone, hundreds of stores were closed. Turns out, India's fashion retail scene is scrambling for a reset. But what exactly went wrong?

And why did giants like Reliance, Adity Berla and shopper stop stumble? and what is the new playbook that they are following to survive. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nick Dha Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philpoles and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 2nd of July. Let's rewind to just after the pandemic.

Retail giants were ready to bounce back and they were not being very subtle about it. Reliance Retail, for example, went all in. They opened nearly 6,000 stores across fashion, groceries and electronics just in the financial year 2022 and 2023. And they were betting big, especially in smaller towns, tier 2, tier 3 and even tier 4 cities. But throwing money at something doesn't always work as the best bet. Shoppers were not rushing back the way the companies had been hoping. And that massive expansion started to backfire.

Reliance had to lay off 42,000 employees in FY 2024, which is basically 11% of its workforce. And most of those cuts were from retail. And it wasn't just Reliance. Aditya Bila Fashion, which owns pantaloons and Biba, shut down 200 stores. Arvin Fashion closed down 70 stores. Shoppers stopped shutdown 9. As you can tell, these were not tiny course corrections. They were signals.

retail was hitting a wall. Analysts actually put it more gently. They use words like streamlining and cleaning up. But the truth was retail was bleeding. And all eyes were on how these giants would respond. So what now? The approach has shifted. Stores are opening slower and more strategically.

Reliance added 1,800 stores in FY2024, which was a far cry from the previous years. And now, any new new. store has to prove itself fast because profit timelines have shrunk from one to two years down to six to 12 months. And retailers know now that the party is over. It is no longer about planting flags everywhere. It is about making each store count. More on this in the next segment, but before that, my colleague Rahil has a message for you. Hi, this is Rahil, the co-host of Daybreak. I'm quickly pausing this episode to share

something very exciting with you. We are hiring. We are looking for someone in the early stages of their journalism career, maybe you're fresh out of journalism school, or you've done a couple internships and projects and are eager to take on your first full-time role in audio. I'm looking for a co-host to help launch a brand new podcast from the Ken. This is a full-time role,

and you'll get to work closely with me as well as the rest of the audio team, right from story pitches to interviews to shaping how the final show sounds. If you're curious, ambitious and absolutely love audio storytelling, we would love to hear from you. All the details will be in the show notes of this episode. With falling sales and rising rents, India's big retailers have been experimenting. Like Delhi Pacific Mall, for example. Two years ago, they opened an outlet mall in Jasola. And it wasn't just another mall. It was built for discounts, big brands, old inventory and slashed prices all year round. Think factory outlet, but fancier.

Brands like Super Dry, American Eagle and Aditya Berlas, the collective signed up. Even Reliance joined in with its label The Tank. They went from 50 brands in 2023 to 70 now. Elsewhere, retailers started pulling away from traditional malls. Shoppers stop, for example, left its long-time home in Rajori Garden in Delhi and moved to a high street location near a busy metro station. Same brands, different setting, and much. much more football. And then there is also the rise of value retail which has low cost but high

turnover formats. Trent's Zudio, meanwhile, has added 220 stores in the financial year 2025 alone. Compare that to Westside, which has added just 16. But Reliance Retail's U-Star, shopper stops in tune and Aditya Birla's style up have the same playbook. It's about volume, simplicity, and offering just enough to keep the budget-conscious shopper coming back. But look beyond location and price and you'll see another shift. Design, experience and vibe. When my colleagues, the Ken reporters De Banjali Biswas and Akriti Bhala, visited stores in Bangalore and Delhi, Westside specifically stood out.

It was spacious, it was clean, the staff were uniformed, and the racks were black. Fixures looked sleek. It just felt weird. way more intentional. Now, compare that to pantaloons or reliance trends is the same neighbourhoods, but their stores are almost empty. And one key difference among them is how products are arranged, how stories are told through their clothes, and Westside just happens to nail it. They run everything in-house, all private labels, unlike trends and pantaloons, with juggle private labels, third-party

brands, and also acquisitions. Even beauty is getting its own spotlight. Shoppers stop started rolling out SS beauty stores. The first one opened in Mumbai in 2022 and now they have 17 stores, which are focused, stylish and targeted. And that is the new rule. Don't be trying to do everything because right now the stakes are too high. Retailers are seeing rent go up by 8 to 12%, even 15% in some spots. But sales per square foot is barely up by 4 to 6%.

So unless a store really stands out, it's not going to make it. And the lesson here is pick a lane, know your shopper and then go all in. Legacy giants like Reliance and Aditya Beryla tried to do too much. There were too many formats, too many ideas and way too many assumptions. Meanwhile, new age brands seem to be way more focused. They know their tribe and that tribe keeps coming back to their stores. As one industry expert put it, it's not about being everything. to everyone because that might just leave you being nothing to no one.

India still loves to shop and that is not changing. But how and where we shop is evolving very fast. For retailers, the path forward is not expansion at all costs. It's about clarity, creativity and the courage to cut what is not working. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a story. small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories,

newsletters and podcast extras. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snitah Sharma and edited by Rajiv Siyiv Siyah.