Accompanying relaxation in local sourcing norms, FDI in retail, ecommerce and wholesale industry was also increased to 100%. This opened doors to large international brands to open their own retail stores in India, something we have been waiting for.
Adidas has got the approval from Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to operate its retail stores under one wholesale entity. The company to planning to start the operations of these stores in 2017. This also makes Adidas the first international sports and lifestyle brand to open its own retail stores in India.
Dave Thomas, Adidas Group India’s Managing Director said, “We are delighted on being given the go-ahead to introduce our own retail format stores. India is a key market for us, and we are fully committed and focused to winning market and mind share in the key cities of the country.”
Adidas plans to open 30-50 stores in major cities in India by 2020, with the earlier ones coming to largest cities in India first. Adidas will also be able to take up its ecommerce path and start selling sports and lifestyle products online.
Adidas will also be applying for Reebok to open its own stores in India, and we will be seeing Adidas’s specific stores like Adidas Originals, HomeCourt and some factory outlets in large cities. How long have we been waiting for those Yeezys from Adidas!
Is this going to change the retail scene in India?
Now that large international brands will be able to setup their own stores in India, we could have one large place catering to just factory outlets. Imagine a small town just outside a large city that houses all these brands under one roof, with one store for every brand. This is going to make shopping so convenient and easy for Indians…and probably cheaper too.
E-commerce will be the second route for such companies as they open their own websites for selling products online, while also channeling their sales through existing marketplaces. Such brands will also take India more seriously and bring more products to our country.
Be it Adidas Yeezys or Nike’s Jordans, these sports companies will be bringing a lot of their premium products to India because the market here exists. In fact, now many brands who did could not open up to India very well will be looking forward to opening their own retail stores in India.
Not just restricting to sports brands, a lot of large clothing chains like GAP, DKNY and The North Face will be able to open their own retail stores in the country, without depending on other entities. This is surely the start of a wonderful trend in India!
Source: IANS