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of being upwardly mobile? Well, if value retail store, The Loot, has its way, you could soon be buying premium brands like FCUK, Giordano, Haute Chilli, Wills Lifestyle, AND (a designer brand by Anita Dongre), Bossini and CavinKare, for a song.

Given the premium positioning of these brands, discounts seems inconceivable on such popular brands. But, The Loot (India) managing director Jay Gupta says discounts could be as high as 50 per cent of the maximum retail price.

“We started stocking premium brands such as Mercedes accessories six months ago. As a result of this, and a greater focus on women’s collection, we now derive almost 15 per cent of our turnover from premium brands,” says Gupta.

The starting price of most premium brands could be Rs 2,500-3,000 per item after the discounts. The company is also working on plans to get the brands it retails to use the fabric left over from their production lines to create exclusively-styled pieces for them. “So far, we have managed to do this with sports brands. Often, this may be for allied categories such as Puma stocks instead of shoes,” Gupta says.

The success with aspirational youth brands has led to the company getting ready to retail premium brands such as CK, FCUK and Giordano at discount prices. Gupta hopes that by lining up a range of youth brands, mass brands, aspirational and premium brands across categories such as perfumes, footwear, accessories, home linens, men’s, women’s and kidswear, the company will be able to take a larger share of the estimated Rs 12,000-crore market of clothing, accessories and footwear sold at a discount.

The Loot, which will double its store network this year to 60 in the country, has doubled the number of brands to 100, offering customers a greater choice of discounted merchandise. Also, the chain has realised that it needs to offer higher discounts in addition to offering more brands for consumers to make impulse purchases at its stores.

“In some categories such as women’s apparel, we have now realised that we need to offer a minimum discount of 50 per cent on the maximum retail price as compared to the minimum of 25 per cent that we offer on other merchandise in our stores,” says Gupta.

The company expects its sales to grow by 20 per cent this year. “With the women’s collection now accounting for 17 per cent (up from 9 per cent in the previous quarter), we have more than doubled the number of women’s brands and introduced new ones such as Puma women,” adds Gupta.