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Tata’s department store chain Westside, introduced a new category of products – creative kitchenware from Lakeland, one of UK’s home shopping pioneers.
Lakeland opened its first shop-in-shop format spread across 200 sq metres in the Westside store located in Forum Mall, Bangalore on Wednesday.
The UK brand opened its first standalone store measuring 320 sq metres in Pune’s Phoenix Market City mall six weeks ago.
“Although we have 68 standalone stores in the UK and 9 in the Middle East, we decided to go with the shop-in-shop format to complement Westside’s Gourmet West, which is their food market. We are located next to Gourmet West as we are targeting the same consumers with our innovative, affordable, cooking and kitchen solutions” Sam Rayner, Managing Director, Lakeland told Business Line.
On being asked if Lakeland is a premium brand catering to the upper middle class consumer, Rayner said “We are not a top-end designer product but have created a market of our own with functional, practical and innovative kitchenware and cooking solutions with products priced upwards of Rs 99.
We are very happy with the response of customers to our first store in Pune. Many of them immediately recognized our brand from their travel to the UK and the Middle East. With the trend of watching celebrity cookery shows like MasterChef on TV catching up in India, I am confident that our products will do very well here.”
Lakeland products available at Westside include bake and ovenware, baking accessories, cookware, home and kitchen appliances, utensils, chopping and cutting range, kitchen accessories, storage and preserving and cleaning range for kitchen and home.
“The idea is to offer everything to help prepare, serve and store proper home-cooked food and accomplish household chores quickly and easily. You no longer have to tell friends and family to bring back convenient Lakeland products from abroad, such as the garlic crusher which minces flakes of garlic and icing dispensers that allow you to decorate cupcakes with 2 colours of icing simultaneously” added Rayner.
Tata’s retail arm Trent Ltd which operates Westside has already established 69 Westside departmental stores measuring 8,000 – 34,000 sq ft in 43 Tier I and Tier II cities across the length and breadth of the country. “With the addition of Lakeland, we are happy to bring a new product offering for contemporary homes to our customers” said Uma Talreja, Head of Marketing, Westside.
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