Noel Tata-led Trent is going to enter the mass-market beauty sector with a new retail concept under the brand ‘Zudio Beauty’. With this, Zudio Beauty is ready to compete head-on with Hindustan Unilever’s Elle18, Sugar Cosmetics, Health & Glow, and Colorbar. The new format looks to capitalise on the increasing demand for affordable beauty products; many competitors such as Reliance, Nykaa and Shoppers Stop focus on premium and luxury categories. The first Zudio Beauty has been launched in Bengaluru, with expansion plans across cities Gurugram, Pune, and Hyderabad.

Tata has already presented a footprint in beauty by virtue of its Tata Cliq Palette-a luxury cosmetic store and has already presented a footprint in beauty by virtue of its Tata Cliq Palette-a luxury cosmetic store. Other than that, Zudio, the affordable clothing brand of Trent, has garnered quite a lot of eyeballs since FY17. Launched within Star stores, Zudio got off to a flying start due to high-margin differential designs as well as efficient in-store operations born out of a relatively low gross margin of 35-40 percent. With a top revenue per square foot of Rs 16,300—triple the industry average—Zudio was spun off as a standalone format in FY18. By FY24, it was raking in over a third of Trent’s revenues, surpassing Westside in terms of store count and revenue too.

Zudio, which is growing rapidly, operates 559 stores across the country as of June and is continuing to scale up; it has thus far outperformed many of its competitors in value retail. Industry experts believe Trent can replicate this success in the beauty space as well. This growth might pose a stiffer challenge to competitors, particularly those like Nykaa, and fast-moving consumer goods players could take a beating due to this expansion as well.