Union Knopf (India)

Tete-e-TETE
In a short span of 12 years V-Mart
has grown to formidable national
fashion retail chain having 129
operational stores with
approximately one lakh square
metres of retail floor across in
Tier-II & III cities. It is growing at a
rate of over 30% per annum for the
past 7 years, claims Lalit Aggarwal,
chairman and managing director of
V-Mart. Servicing the fashion tastes
of Indian middle class is a huge
challenge and V-Mart successfully
pioneered this complex terrain, he
asserts in a revealing interview
with Team A&F.
Lalit
V
Mart
Aggarwal, CMD, VMART
Serving Quality & Value
Fashion to Indian
Consumers since ’04
Lalit Aggarwal is credited with
having pioneered the concept of
“value retail” departmental
store chain in India when he
and his cousins set up Vishal
Mega Mart in 1999. But his
experience in retail industry is
not just confined to these 17
years. “From childhood days we
have watched and experienced
the retail business; ever since
my father set up a shop in 1975
in Kolkata,” he recalls and adds,
“From a very basic small retail
we got an opportunity to launch
a chain of stores in 1999. Till
2002-03 we cousins worked
together at Vishal Mega Mart
and in 2004 we split up - I
opened my own store V-Mart
in Ahmadabad and since then
we are growing.”
A&F: You preferred to open your
first store in Ahmadabad rather
than Delhi; did you find a better
market potential there?
Lalit Aggarwal: We did get back to
Delhi in the very first year of
operations but preferred to have first
hand experience in Ahmadabad
because the Gujarati community is
20
January 2017
APPAREL&Fashion