Retail careers in India: what the numbers say about jobs, growth and where to start
Retail is the industry every Indian has used and almost no graduate has studied. It employs people in every district of the country, it publishes some of the most detailed results of any listed sector, and it changed shape faster between 2023 and 2026 than in the previous decade. That combination produces a lot of confident opinion and very little arithmetic.
This report answers three questions with numbers that can be checked: which part of retail is actually growing, what each job is measured on, and which skills the sector is short of. Everything below comes from Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation releases, company results, Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports, and published regulations, with the period stated. Start with the one-page brief.
Every chart below uses the same six colours, and each one always means the same thing.
October 2026
FY26 means the year ended 31 March 2026. Q2 FY27 means July to September 2026, throughout this report
- Private consumption rose to ₹196.5 lakh crore, 56.7% of GDP.
- GST was cut to two main slabs, 5% and 18%, from 22 September 2025.
- Department and premium apparel lagged. ABFRL's loss widened to ₹830 crore.
- Swiggy lost ₹4,154 crore building quick commerce.
- Value chains grew 16 to 20%. Vishal Mega Mart reached 795 stores.
- Quick commerce grew about 120%, to roughly a sixth of online retail.
- Hiring is heaviest where stores are opening, in value formats and smaller towns.
- Learn like-for-like growth and attrition. They decide which chains are healthy.
Each figure is dated; sources are named in the section that discusses it
1. Why look at this sector at all
Four things make retail worth a serious look, and one should give you pause.
It sits on top of the largest spending pool in the economy. Private final consumption expenditure, the money households spend on goods and services, was ₹1,96,50,901 crore in 2025-26 at current prices, or 56.7% of GDP, according to the provisional estimates of national income released on 5 June 2026. It grew 9.4% in nominal terms and 7.7% in real terms. Every rupee a retailer earns comes out of that number.
It employs at a scale few sectors match. The Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025 puts 12.9% of all Indian workers in trade, hotels and restaurants in 2025, up from 12.5% in 2024. Retail is the largest part of that group, and it hires graduates and non-graduates into the same stores.
The organised players are growing faster than the economy. Among the listed retailers in this report, most grew revenue between 16% and 33% in FY26, against nominal consumption growth of 9.4%. That gap is the formalisation of Indian retail happening in real time, and it is where new jobs are created.
The data is unusually public. Listed retailers report quarterly, many publish a monthly or quarterly business update with store counts, and every large listed company files a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report showing headcount, median pay and staff turnover. Few industries let a candidate check an employer this precisely before applying.
And the caution: the people side is under strain. Permanent-employee turnover was 64% at V-Mart and 49.2% at Shoppers Stop in FY25, on their own sustainability reports. A sector that loses half its staff every year is one where people who stay, and people who can keep others, are promoted fast. It is also one where many entrants leave within months.
Each band carries a headline number and the evidence behind it
- Private final consumption expenditure in 2025-26, at current prices, 56.7% of GDP (MoSPI).
- Up from ₹179.7 lakh crore in 2024-25, a nominal rise of 9.4%; real growth was 7.7%.
- Average monthly spending per person was ₹4,122 in rural India and ₹6,996 in urban India in 2023-24 (HCES).
- Food took 47.04% of rural and 39.68% of urban household spending, which is why grocery is the largest retail category.
- DMart grew consolidated revenue 15.9% in FY26, Vishal Mega Mart 20.4% and V-Mart 16%.
- All three sell everyday goods at low prices, increasingly outside the largest metros.
- Vishal Mega Mart ran 795 stores across 535 cities at March 2026.
- Each new store is a hiring event: staff, a department manager and a store manager.
- Online retail gross merchandise value in FY26, about 21% higher than a year earlier, on Redseer estimates.
- Quick commerce was about US$13 to 14 billion of that, growing roughly 120%.
- UPI carried 24,161.69 crore transactions worth ₹314.23 lakh crore in FY26.
- Digital payment rails mean even a small store now produces data someone has to analyse.
- Reliance Retail's store count at 31 March 2026, after opening 1,564 stores in FY26.
- Its gross revenue was ₹3.70 lakh crore and profit after tax ₹13,842 crore.
- Trent ran 1,342 stores by 30 September 2026, with Zudio past 1,000.
- Large chains run structured training, which is what makes a first retail job transferable.
- Permanent-employee turnover at V-Mart in FY25. Shoppers Stop was 49.2%.
- Median pay for V-Mart employees below senior management was about ₹1.4 lakh a year in FY25.
- Retail inflation was 5.54% in September 2026, with food at 7.74%, squeezing the shoppers value chains depend on.
- DMart's management said entry-level wage inflation nudged up operating costs in Q2 FY27.
2. How big it is, and how fast it is really growing
Start with a distinction that separates people who have read about this sector from people who understand it. You will see one number quoted in almost every article: IBEF puts the Indian retail market at US$1,093.89 billion in 2025 and says it is on track to exceed US$2,361.11 billion by 2030. Those are estimates and a projection, not measurements, and the same page also carries an older line about reaching US$1 trillion by 2030. No government agency publishes a single official "retail market size" for India.
What has actually been measured is household spending, employment and the results of listed companies. The national accounts put private consumption at ₹196.5 lakh crore in 2025-26. The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2023-24 measured average monthly spending per person at ₹4,122 in rural India and ₹6,996 in urban India, excluding imputed values. Those two numbers, the total and the per-person, are the ones to quote.
The second measured thing, and the more important one for a career, is the gap between categories. Organised retail is not growing evenly. It is growing fastest where it is cheapest or quickest, and slowest where it is neither.
Year-on-year growth, FY26. Nominal consumption growth is the benchmark every retailer is competing against
Read the bases carefully. GMV is the value of goods ordered, not the platform's revenue. Reliance Retail reports gross revenue, Shoppers Stop total consolidated income, and DMart and Vishal Mega Mart revenue from operations. They are directionally comparable but not identical measures. Shoppers Stop is shown in red because it grew more slowly than household spending itself. Sources: MoSPI provisional estimates, 5 June 2026; Redseer, May 2026; company FY26 results.
If you are asked how big Indian retail is, give what was measured and the date: “Private consumption was ₹196.5 lakh crore in 2025-26, and 12.9% of workers are in trade, hotels and restaurants”. If you are asked about the US$1.09 trillion figure, say what it is: an IBEF estimate for 2025, not an official statistic. Answering the first question with the second number is the tell that you have memorised a headline rather than read a report.
The third measured thing is direction, and here the sector splits. Value formats aimed at price-conscious households, many of them outside the top cities, grew steadily and profitably. Speed-led formats, quick commerce above all, grew far faster but mostly at a loss. Full-price department stores and premium apparel grew slowly and, in several cases, lost money.
There is a fourth movement underneath all three, and it is the one that changes where the jobs are. The GST Council's decision to move to a two-rate structure, a standard rate of 18% and a merit rate of 5%, with a 40% rate for a small set of goods, took effect on 22 September 2025. Lower rates on everyday goods reach the shopper through the shelf price, and retail staff are the people who have to reprice, re-label and explain it.
Each one is measured or company-reported, except the last, and each implies a different kind of job
- DMart revenue ₹68,821 crore, up 15.9%.
- Vishal Mega Mart profit up 32.8% to ₹839 crore.
- Growth comes from new stores in new towns, so store-operations hiring is continuous.
- Roughly US$13 to 14 billion of GMV in FY26, about 17% of online retail.
- Blinkit ran 2,243 dark stores and Instamart 1,143 at March 2026.
- Growth is real; profit, outside Blinkit's parent, mostly is not yet.
- Shoppers Stop grew 8.8% and lost ₹36 crore.
- ABFRL's loss widened to ₹830 crore from ₹456 crore.
- The format is being pulled apart from both ends, price and speed.
- IBEF projects the market to exceed US$2,361 billion by 2030.
- It expects organised retail to take more than 35% of the market by then.
- Useful as direction. Never quote it as a current figure.
3. Who leads, who is stuck, and what that tells you
This is the most useful table in the report if you are choosing an employer, and it starts with a fact that surprises almost everyone. Reliance Retail is not merely the largest retailer in India; with gross revenue of ₹3.70 lakh crore in FY26, it is about 1.8 times the size of the next eight listed retailers in this report put together.
The reason is structural: Reliance Retail runs grocery, electronics, fashion, jewellery, pharmacy and online commerce under one roof, across 20,160 stores and 78.3 million square feet. Everyone else in this table is a specialist: a grocery chain, a value fashion chain, a jeweller, an eyewear brand, a beauty platform.
Year ended 31 March 2026, ₹ crore. Bar length is to scale against Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail is gross revenue (₹3.70 lakh crore, rounded); Titan is total income; Shoppers Stop is total consolidated income; DMart, Trent, Vishal Mega Mart, Nykaa and Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands are consolidated revenue from operations; Lenskart and V-Mart are revenue as reported in their FY26 results. Shoppers Stop is shown in red because it reported a loss. Teal marks value and everyday formats, purple digital-first or omnichannel specialists, amber diversified, premium and lifestyle retailers.
Two patterns are worth carrying into any conversation about this sector. The first is that scale and profitability have separated by format. Reliance Retail earned ₹13,842 crore of profit on ₹3.70 lakh crore of gross revenue, about 3.7%. Trent earned ₹1,721 crore on ₹20,074 crore, about 8.6%. Shoppers Stop lost money on ₹5,095 crore of income. Size does not decide the margin; the format does.
The second is that the retailers selling on price to smaller towns did better than the ones selling on brand to large cities. Vishal Mega Mart, V-Mart and DMart all grew between 16% and 20%, and all three were profitable. The department store and premium apparel businesses grew in single digits or lost money. If you want to know where new store jobs will appear, follow the value chains' store-opening announcements.
4. Where the growth actually sits
Here is the pattern that matters most for anyone joining. In FY26 the retailers that grew fastest were not the oldest or the best known. They were the ones that either blended stores with an app, or sold everyday goods at the lowest price, or delivered fastest.
Year-on-year growth in revenue, year ended 31 March 2026
All ten figures are for the same period, the year ended 31 March 2026, which is why they can be compared directly. Titan's growth was led by jewellery, whose revenue moves with the price of gold as well as with volumes, so treat its bar as partly a commodity effect. Source: each company's FY26 results.
Averaging those groups makes the point sharper. The two omnichannel specialists grew about 29%. The four value formats grew about 17%. Reliance Retail, Shoppers Stop and Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands averaged about 9%, below the 9.4% growth in household spending. Growth went to formats that win clearly on one dimension, price or convenience, rather than to formats that try to win on all of them.
Underneath the listed companies, the fastest-growing slice of retail is not a store at all. Redseer estimates that quick commerce reached about US$13 to 14 billion of gross merchandise value in FY26, roughly 17% of online retail, and grew about 120% in the year. Each of those orders is picked in a dark store, a small warehouse that looks like a supermarket with no customers in it, and each dark store is staffed.
Each one is backed by a company result or a named estimate
- Vishal Mega Mart grew 20.4% with stores in 535 cities.
- V-Mart made a record 92 store additions in FY26.
- Trent's Zudio passed 1,000 stores in September 2026.
- About 120% GMV growth in FY26, on Redseer estimates.
- Instamart gross order value up 68.8% in the January to March 2026 quarter.
- Dark-store, category and supply roles are new and under-supplied.
- Lenskart grew 32% and added 603 net stores.
- Nykaa grew 26.1% and nearly tripled profit to ₹204 crore.
- Both need people who understand a store and a funnel at once.
- DMart stores older than two years grew 9.5% in Q2 FY27, against 6.8% a year earlier.
- That growth comes from the same floor space, not new stores.
- Store managers who lift it are the most valuable people in retail.
“What is this format's like-for-like growth, and what is my store or category expected to contribute to it?” Almost no candidate asks it. If the answer is mostly new stores, you are joining an expansion machine and will be measured on opening and staffing stores quickly. If it is mostly like-for-like, you will be measured on footfall, conversion and basket size in a store that already exists. Those are two very different jobs inside what looks like the same industry.
5. How a product reaches a shopper, and the jobs that do it
Indian retail does not have one channel. It has four, running at four very different scales, and almost every entry-level role sits inside one of them.
Scale figures are the most recent published ones, with the period stated
The physical network behind the second and fourth of those is large, and, unusually for an Indian industry, it is counted and reported every quarter by the companies themselves.
Stores and dark stores operated by four retailers, most recent reported counts
Shown as counts rather than as bars, because the store sizes are completely different. A DMart store is a large-format supermarket; a Reliance count includes small specialty and convenience outlets; a dark store has no shoppers at all. Reliance Retail had 78.3 million sq ft across its 20,160 stores; Vishal Mega Mart had 13.45 million sq ft across 795. Sources: company results and business updates.
Four terms run through every conversation in this sector, and candidates routinely get them wrong. Like-for-like growth, also called same-store sales growth, is growth from stores open for a full comparable period, so new openings are excluded. Gross merchandise value is the value of goods ordered on a platform, which is not the same as its revenue. Net order value is GMV after discounts and cancellations; Blinkit, for example, reported net order value of ₹14,386 crore and quick-commerce revenue of ₹13,232 crore for the January to March 2026 quarter. Dark store is a fulfilment centre laid out like a shop but closed to the public.
6. The digital shift, and what it actually changed
This is the part of the sector that changed fastest, and the part where most students' mental model is three years out of date. Online retail in India is no longer only about two large marketplaces delivering in two days. On Redseer's estimates it was a US$80 billion business in FY26, and roughly one rupee in six of it was ordered for delivery within minutes.
Gross merchandise value, FY26, US$ billion. Redseer estimates
Redseer Strategy Consultants, May 2026, at ₹85 to the US dollar. These are estimates by a research firm, not official statistics; no government agency publishes e-commerce GMV. For the deeper picture of online retail careers, see our E-Commerce industry report.
The clearest single illustration is the money being spent to build it. Swiggy's revenue from operations rose 50.8% to ₹23,053 crore in FY26, but it lost ₹4,154 crore, in a year when it was expanding Instamart. Blinkit, owned by Eternal, ran 2,243 dark stores by March 2026, according to Eternal's results. Growth on this scale is being paid for by investors today in the expectation of profit later, which is worth remembering when you weigh an offer.
The infrastructure story did not stop at the platforms. The Open Network for Digital Commerce, the government-backed open protocol for online orders, reports passing 500 million cumulative transactions in July 2026. UPI, which every store and platform now accepts, carried 24,161.69 crore transactions worth ₹314.23 lakh crore in FY26, according to a government reply in the Lok Sabha. Digital payment has quietly turned every till into a data source.
Two columns worth separating before an interview
- Delivery in minutes is mainstream: quick commerce is about 17% of online retail.
- Stores and apps merged: Lenskart and Nykaa grew 26 to 32% doing both.
- Payments went digital: ₹314 lakh crore moved over UPI in FY26.
- Physical stores still carry the bulk of organised retail revenue.
- DMart grew 15.9% with no meaningful reliance on speed.
- Quick commerce is still loss-making for most players: Swiggy lost ₹4,154 crore.
- Value retail in smaller towns: Vishal Mega Mart profit up 32.8%.
- Open networks: ONDC past 500 million cumulative transactions.
- Like-for-like growth at DMart's mature stores rose to 9.5%.
- Retail market above US$2,361 billion by 2030.
- Organised retail above 35% of the market by 2030.
- Both are IBEF projections. Neither has been measured.
The career point. Store operations still carry the overwhelming majority of retail jobs, and it is where most people should start. But the roles that combine store knowledge with something else, inventory data, demand planning, dark-store operations, app-led customer journeys, are the ones growing fastest and the least crowded.
7. How the money is made, and what you will be measured on
This section exists for one reason. Whatever role you take in retail, your work will be judged by how it moves one of four blocks. People who can name the block in an interview stand out immediately.
A structure diagram, not measured data. The margins it produces are measured, and they are in the table below
This diagram shows the structure of a retailer's profit and loss account. It contains no estimated percentages, because companies do not publish a standardised cost split.
The number the sector is judged on is margin, and the spread across Indian retailers in FY26 is wide. The same activity, selling goods in a store, produces very different results depending on what is sold and how the store is run.
Read that table as a warning about a single word. Scale in retail does not automatically create margin, because the largest costs, rent and people, rise with every store you open. What creates margin is either owning the product (Lenskart, Trent, Vishal Mega Mart's own brands) or running the store more cheaply than anyone else (DMart). Margins here are calculated from each company's reported FY26 revenue and profit or EBITDA, and EBITDA and net margin are different measures; do not compare a figure in one column type with the other.
Two lines deserve precision because they shape day-to-day work. Shrinkage is stock lost to theft, damage or error, and it comes straight out of gross margin, which is why store teams count stock so often. Inventory turn is how many times a year the stock is sold and replaced; fast fashion wins by turning stock quickly, and a store manager who clears slow stock early protects the margin the buying team negotiated.
8. What is being built, and where
Store openings are the closest thing this sector has to a hiring forecast, and unusually, most large retailers announce them every quarter. The pattern across the last year is consistent: value chains and specialist chains are adding stores fastest, and they are adding them outside the largest cities.
Store openings reported for the year ended 31 March 2026
Counts are as each company reports them: Lenskart reports net additions, ABFRL gross additions, and the others store openings with year-end totals. A large-format store and a small specialty outlet are not the same size, so compare within a company rather than across companies. Sources: company FY26 results.
The second kind of building is in dark stores. Blinkit and Instamart alone ran 3,386 between them at 31 March 2026, and new entrants are building their own networks. A dark store needs a manager, shift leads, pickers and inventory controllers, and the platforms run their own training for each.
The third is capital and policy. Cumulative foreign direct investment into retail trading reached US$5,028.12 million between April 2000 and March 2026, according to DPIIT data reported by IBEF. In July 2026 the government issued Press Note 3 (2026 Series), allowing foreign-owned e-commerce companies to run an inventory-based model, but only for exporting goods made in India. Inventory-based selling to Indian consumers by foreign-owned platforms remains barred.
The fourth is pricing. GST on many everyday items fell when the two-rate structure took effect on 22 September 2025. Gross GST collections reached ₹2,03,521 crore in September 2026, up 14.7% on a year earlier, according to official data reported on 1 October 2026.
Committed or already operating, with the date of each figure
- Trent's Zudio crossed 1,000 stores in Q2 FY27; Trent ran 1,342 stores in all at 30 September 2026.
- Vishal Mega Mart added 105 stores in FY26, reaching 795 across 535 cities.
- V-Mart added a record 92 stores, reaching 577.
- DMart reached 518 stores by 30 September 2026.
- Stores opened by Reliance Retail in FY26, taking it to 20,160.
- Its total area reached 78.3 million sq ft.
- Lenskart added 603 net stores, funded by its own operating cash flow.
- Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands ran 3,348 stores across about 4.9 million sq ft.
- Blinkit 2,243 and Instamart 1,143 at 31 March 2026.
- Instamart gross order value grew 68.8% in the January to March 2026 quarter.
- Quick commerce GMV was about US$13 to 14 billion in FY26, on Redseer estimates.
- Each site is staffed in shifts, around the clock in larger cities.
- Press Note 3 (2026 Series) allows FDI in inventory-based e-commerce for exports only.
- GST moved to two main rates from 22 September 2025.
- Cumulative FDI into retail trading reached about US$5.03 billion by March 2026.
- These shape what a retailer can sell, to whom, and at what price.
9. The rules you will work inside
Retail is regulated by more bodies than most candidates realise. A store manager deals with labour law, food safety, weights and measures, and tax every week. An e-commerce or quick-commerce employee adds consumer protection, data protection and foreign investment rules on top.
The body, what it controls, and why it matters to your job application
| Body | Controls | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| DPIIT | Foreign direct investment policy for single-brand, multi-brand and e-commerce retail | Decides which business models foreign-owned retailers and platforms are allowed to run in India |
| GST Council and CBIC | Tax rates on goods and how they are charged | Rate changes reach the shelf price; stores have to reprice and invoice correctly |
| CCPA | Consumer protection, e-commerce rules, dark patterns and misleading claims | Has penalised platforms for checkout design. Anyone in product, growth or marketing works under these rules |
| Legal Metrology | Weights, measures, MRP and labelling of packaged goods | Every packaged product on a shelf or a product page must carry the mandated declarations |
| FSSAI and state food regulators | Food safety licences and hygiene in stores, warehouses and dark stores | A failed inspection can stop a store or dark store trading |
| MeitY and the Data Protection Board | The Digital Personal Data Protection Act and Rules | Loyalty programmes, apps and customer databases all fall under it, with obligations phasing in to May 2027 |
| Ministry of Labour and Employment | The four labour codes, including gig and platform workers | Sets wages, working hours, fixed-term employment and social security for most retail staff |
| Competition Commission of India | Competition law, including complaints about platform pricing | Shapes how far large platforms can discount and how they treat sellers |
Four rule changes have altered what the job looks like, and all four are either in force or on a published timetable.
Each is either in force or on a published timetable
- The four labour codes, on wages, industrial relations, social security and occupational safety, came into effect on 21 November 2025.
- Fixed-term employees become eligible for gratuity after one year rather than five.
- Aggregators are required to contribute 1 to 2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of payments to gig and platform workers, to a social security fund.
- About 11.5 lakh platform workers had registered on the e-Shram portal by August 2026.
- GST moved to a standard rate of 18% and a merit rate of 5%, with a 40% rate for a select few goods.
- Many everyday goods moved to lower slabs, which flows through to shelf prices.
- Gross GST collections were ₹2,03,521 crore in September 2026, up 14.7%.
- Store and category teams carry out the repricing that a rate change requires.
- The CCPA's 2023 guidelines specify 13 dark patterns, including false urgency, basket sneaking and drip pricing.
- In June 2025 it advised all e-commerce platforms to self-audit for dark patterns within three months.
- It fined Zepto ₹7 lakh in December 2025 for drip pricing and basket sneaking.
- In August 2026 the government told the Rajya Sabha that penalties had been imposed on several platforms.
- The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were notified on 13 November 2025.
- Rules on consent managers take effect from 13 November 2026.
- The core obligations on notice, consent, security and rights take effect from 13 May 2027.
- Every loyalty programme, app and customer database in retail falls inside them.
The mechanism is worth understanding once, because it explains most retail news you will read. A law sets a direction, a regulator writes the detail, companies build the process, and enforcement decides how seriously the process is taken. The jobs are created at the third step.
10. What could go wrong
Read this as a list of things to watch rather than reasons to stay away. Every risk here is documented in an official release, a company filing or a regulator's action, and most of them are, read another way, the reason the sector is hiring.
Ranked by how directly each one touches an early-career role
| Risk | The evidence | How likely | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff turnover | Permanent-employee turnover was 64% at V-Mart and 49.2% at Shoppers Stop in FY25, on their own BRSRs | Certain, already measured | Expect to cover for empty roles early. Ask any employer for its attrition figure; listed retailers publish it |
| Low entry pay | Median pay for V-Mart employees below senior management was about ₹1.42 lakh a year for men and ₹1.29 lakh for women in FY25 | Certain, already measured | Frontline store pay is low. Judge an offer on the promotion path and training, not only the first salary |
| Format squeeze | Shoppers Stop lost ₹36 crore and ABFRL ₹830 crore in FY26, while value chains grew 16 to 20% profitably | High | Be careful about joining a format that is neither the cheapest nor the most convenient purely for the brand name |
| Quick-commerce losses | Swiggy lost ₹4,154 crore in FY26 while growing Instamart | High | Ask any platform employer how its unit economics are trending and how dependent it is on new funding |
| Inflation | CPI inflation was 5.54% in September 2026, with food at 7.74%, on the new 2024 base | Moderate to high | Higher food prices squeeze discretionary spending first, which hits fashion and lifestyle before grocery |
| Consumer-protection enforcement | CCPA guidelines name 13 dark patterns; Zepto was fined ₹7 lakh in December 2025 and further penalties were reported in August 2026 | Moderate | Product, growth and marketing roles now carry real compliance risk. Learn the 13 patterns before you design a checkout |
| Data-protection deadline | Core duties under the DPDP Rules apply from 13 May 2027 | Certain, on a timetable | Anyone handling customer data, CRM or loyalty programmes needs to understand consent. It is a skill gap, and a hiring signal |
The risk retailers worry about most in their own disclosures is not demand. It is the cost and stability of the people who run the stores. DMart's management said in its Q2 FY27 results that entry-level wage inflation had led to a marginal increase in operating expenses. For a candidate, that cuts both ways: pay at the entry level is rising, and employers are looking hard for people who will stay.
11. One company's year, in detail
Trent is not the largest retailer in India, but it is the clearest example of a format that grew fast, stayed profitable and kept opening stores at a pace almost no one else matches. Its numbers are audited and public, it reports store counts every quarter, and FY26 and the first half of FY27 tested whether its growth would hold. It is also a clear answer to the question “can a value fashion format scale in India”.
Trent, part of the Tata group, runs Westside, a mid-market fashion chain, and Zudio, a value fashion chain that sells almost entirely its own label at low prices. It also has interests in Star, a grocery business, and in other joint ventures. The story of its year is the story of what happens when one format gets the price, the product and the store-opening machine right at the same time.
What it establishes. Growth and margin do not have to trade off in Indian retail, but only when the retailer owns the product and can open stores faster than competitors without letting the stores go stale. Trent grew revenue 17% and kept a net margin of about 8.6% while adding hundreds of stores.
What it does not establish. One strong period is not a guarantee. Value fashion is crowded and easy to copy, store openings eventually slow as the best locations fill, and the quarterly growth figures above are standalone updates rather than full audited results. Treat Trent as a demonstration of what the model can do, not as a forecast for every value retailer.
12. Latest news
The sector restates itself every quarter. These are the developments from the last few months that have actually changed something, each with the date it happened.
Pick one item, not all nine, and have a view on it. “DMart's mature stores grew 9.5% in Q2 FY27 against 6.8% a year earlier, which tells me the growth is coming from existing stores getting busier, not only from new ones” is a better answer than reciting the list. Interviewers are testing whether you read, not whether you memorise.
13. The jobs themselves
Retail hires into a small number of well-defined tracks, and the promise is real: you will be given a section of a store, a category or a shift to run far earlier than in most industries. The trade-off is just as real: long hours, weekend and festival work, and, at the frontline, low starting pay.
One caveat before the tables. Pay, programme names and eligibility rules change every year, and retailers do not publish entry salaries the way governments publish pay scales. The figures below are statutory minimums and the median pay companies disclose in their own sustainability reports. Always check the specific offer letter.
Most graduates try only the second, and it has the smallest intake
The store route, in detail
The route has more structure than it appears. Frontline jobs are hired directly by the store or a regional team, often within days, and the skills are certified nationally through the Retailers Association's Skill Council of India, set up and funded under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Its site reports more than 17.8 lakh candidates certified.
The important and widely missed detail: apprenticeship is a legitimate way in. Under the Apprenticeship Rules as amended in 2025, the minimum monthly stipend for apprentices was raised to a range of ₹6,800 to ₹12,300 depending on qualification, from ₹5,000 to ₹9,000. A retail apprenticeship with a large chain counts as experience and often converts into a permanent role.
Statutory minimum wages in Delhi, and the median pay retailers disclose for employees below senior management
| Measure | Who it covers | Amount | Source and period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum wage, unskilled | Scheduled employments in Delhi, including shops | ₹18,456 per month | Delhi Labour Department, from 1 April 2025 |
| Minimum wage, semi-skilled | As above | ₹20,371 per month | Delhi Labour Department, from 1 April 2025 |
| Minimum wage, skilled | As above | ₹22,411 per month | Delhi Labour Department, from 1 April 2025 |
| Median pay, V-Mart | Employees other than directors and key managers | ₹1.42 lakh a year, men; ₹1.29 lakh, women | Company BRSR, FY25 |
| Median pay, Shoppers Stop | Employees other than directors and key managers | About ₹3 lakh a year | Company BRSR, FY25 |
| Median pay, Titan | Employees other than directors and key managers | ₹10.86 lakh a year, men; ₹8.74 lakh, women | Company BRSR, FY26 |
Minimum wages differ by state and are revised periodically for dearness allowance; Delhi is shown because its order is published in full. The medians cover all employees below the board and key managerial personnel, including experienced and head-office staff, so they are not starting salaries. V-Mart's workforce is mostly frontline store staff; Titan's employee category excludes its workers and franchised stores. Sources: Delhi minimum wage order; company Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reports.
What the first year actually looks like
Whichever route you enter by, the first year is dominated by the same thing: the customer and the stock. You will learn how goods arrive, how they are displayed, why they do or do not sell, and what happens when they are lost.
Three entry routes converge on the customer and the stock, then fan out
in year one
The tracks are not sealed. Moving from store operations into buying, category or supply chain after two or three years is one of the most common transitions in the sector, and the store experience is usually what makes the move possible.
The skills that actually get you hired
For store roles, selection is mostly about attitude, communication and reliability, judged in a short interview and often a day on the floor. Turnover is high enough that employers value someone they believe will stay more than almost any qualification.
For everything else, three specific things pay off far more than general preparation. First, be able to read numbers about a store: like-for-like growth, conversion, average basket and shrinkage. Second, be comfortable in a spreadsheet; buying, category and analytics roles all start there. Third, know the format you are applying to, by visiting stores and reading the company's latest results, because almost no candidate does.
Visit two stores of the retailer you are applying to, and one store of its closest competitor, before the interview. Note what is on the front display, how many staff are on the floor, how long the billing queue is, and which shelves are empty. Then prepare one specific suggestion. Almost every candidate prepares answers about themselves and almost none prepares an observation about the store, and the observation is what the panel remembers.
14. The numbers to learn, and what to do next
Eight terms carry specific meanings in this sector and are used loosely almost everywhere else. Knowing them precisely is the cheapest possible way to sound like someone who has worked in retail.
Always state the basis and the period. “DMart's consolidated revenue grew 15.9% in FY26, and its mature stores grew 9.5% like-for-like in Q2 FY27” is a sentence almost no candidate can say. “DMart is growing fast” is a sentence anyone can say. Retail runs on published quarterly results and sustainability reports, and the people who have actually opened them are a very small group.
What to do next. Six concrete steps, in the order they will actually help.
Every figure in this report is traceable to an official statistical release, a company's own results or business update, a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report, a published regulation, or a named research firm's estimate, with the period stated in the text. Data is current as of 29 October 2026. Official statistics are published with a lag, so household spending data is for 2023-24 and the latest employment survey is for 2025, while company figures run to September 2026. Market-size figures from IBEF and online retail figures from Redseer are estimates, and are labelled as such wherever they appear.