Reliance Retail to be the face of Gap Inc in Indian markets

In the last few months, Reliance Retail has been trying to expand its distribution and retail franchise by offering an outlet for marquee brands. It has already tied up with marquee designer labels like Neeta Lulla, Manish Malhotra etc. In its latest addition to its retail ensemble, Reliance Retail will introduce the latest fashion offerings from Gap Inc, one of the leading fashion brands in the United States. Gap products will be offered to the Indian audience through a mix of exclusive brand stores, multi-brand stores and digital platforms.

Under the long term partnership agreement signed between Reliance Retail and Gap Inc of the US, the former will become the official retailer for Gap across all channels in India. This is in line with the efforts of Reliance Retail in the last few months to bring the latest and the most iconic brands in the world to their customers. While Reliance Retail is still to make a big contribution to profits, it is already the second largest contributor to the Reliance group top line after the O2C business. Retail also contributes about a third to the valuations of RIL.

Reliance Retail and Gap Inc will be looking at complementing the strengths of one another by bringing industry-leading fashion products and retail experiences to consumers. Gap is a world leader in casual lifestyle apparel brand and this perfectly gels with Reliance Retail’s established presence and specialization in handling omnichannel retail networks. Reliance also has the capability for scaling local manufacturing combined with sourcing efficiencies. It remains to be seen how this alliance pans out in the coming quarters.

For Gap Inc, this gives them the perfect platform to tap the increasingly selective and discerning Indian apparel market. People are willing to spending more on established brands but the big challenge here is to make your presence felt in a rather crowded market. Gap has been trying to foray into India in a big way and also growing the Gap business across key international markets. That is where the regional expertise of Reliance Retail will add a lot of value to them. This also enables Gap to diversify its global market dependency.

Gap has a pedigree of over 50 years and it has continued to build on its core denim based fashion strengths. Apart from a very strong digital market interface, Gap also sells its products through company-operated stores and franchise retail locations globally. One of the unique features of Gap products is its ability to span across generations and appeal to the unique fashion sensitivities of each segment. The fashion themes of Gap are bold and also radical and are known to popularly reflect the optimistic American way of life.

Globally, the Gap brand is synonymous with a youthful shopping experience and caters with that philosophy across men, women and kids fashion. Reliance Retail Ventures is the holding company of Reliance Retail as well as all its retail ventures. For the fiscal year ending March 2022, Reliance Retail Ventures had posted consolidated sales revenues of Rs199,704 crore and net profits of Rs7,055 crore. In terms of market cap contribution, Reliance Retail Ventures contributes nearly one-third of the value of the company overall.