Apparel retailing is geared to take on customers at places other than the traditional locations like neighborhood markets, high streets and malls. With increased need for convenience and visibility retailing, companies explore newer locations like airports, metro stations, restaurants, cafés&even beauty salons.

Retailing at such outlets typically follows two formats – the first is when space is sublet for retailing branded merchandise at airports, metro stations, etc. The second kind is when cafés, restaurants, fast food chains sell merchandise to promote their own brand through T-shirts, caps, bags, mugs, etc. While brand retailing at airports/metro stations is growing at a fast pace, brand building by cafés/restaurants through retailing of merchandise will also be an important trend mostly targeted at kids and youth.

Airport retailing is an important area which will see growth for apparel and more importantly fashion accessories. The global duty free market is estimated at US $ 25 billion for the year 2004. India which has almost minimal exposure to duty free retailing is now witnessing a lot of activity in this sector. This has not gone unnoticed by international travel retail companies who have shown interest in entering India. Some of these companies are the Nuance Group, HMS Host, Gebrueder Heinemann, Dufry International, DFS Group, Alpha and SSP. On the domestic front, in the absence of travel retail companies, it is retailers like Shoppers' Stop, Oberoi and Pantaloon Retail that are keen to enter this market.

Future Group has tied up with Alpha Airport group for airport retailing. These Alpha future shops will be spread over 8000 sq. ft. of which 1100 sq. ft. is reserved for fashion, accessories and confectionary. Similarly, Shoppers’ Stop has tied up with the Nuance group to operate stores in some airports and are expecting to earn revenue of up to Rs. 950 crore over the next 7 years.

Metro stations in Delhi with high footfalls are attracting the attention of retailers. Some metro stations already have outlets like Café Coffee day and it would not be long before branded apparel is retailed here as well. Similarly, beauty salons like L'Oreal and Lakme selling skin and hair care products, can be ideal outlets for retailing categories like lingerie, swimwear, beachwear etc.

Internationally, Hard Rock Café is the most successful example of own brand retail category. With the advent of such chains in India, we will be seeing a lot more of apparel merchandise at such avenues. Currently in India, café chains like Café Coffee Day are already retailing T-shirts, caps&bags at their outlets.

Going forward, how will fashion businesses react to retailing at these off beat avenues – will they create special apparel/accessory range for these points of retail or will they start retailing aggressively at airports in other countries (E.g. Hidesign)? Will apparel companies tie-up with fast food chains (E.g. McDonald's, Pizza Hut etc.) to design and produce apparel for them?