“The future of value retail in India is being built in Tier 2+ cities — but the supply chain needs to be just as modern as the consumer demand,” said Abhishek Dua, Co-founder and CEO of Showroom B2B. “We’re solving that with a combination of manufacturing know-how, technology, and capital discipline.”
India’s value retail sector has expanded rapidly over the past few years. Brands like Zudio, V-Mart, Yousta, Vishal Mega Mart, and StyleUp are opening stores across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and changing how affordable fashion is bought and sold in the country. These stores are clean, well-lit, and consistent in pricing and assortment, and offer a standardised retail experience in markets that previously depended on local shops and unorganised supply.
But while the front end has been modernised, the systems behind it, particularly sourcing, have struggled to keep up.
Value retail chains in India face major sourcing challenges due to a fragmented and unorganised supplier base, leading to inconsistent quality, unreliable lead times, and limited scalability. Most vendors lack compliance, tech integration, and are unable to meet the low-cost, fast-turnaround needs of value fashion. This hampers retailers’ ability to respond to demand shifts while maintaining margins.
This isn’t a problem that software alone can solve. The bottleneck, in a segment that runs on tight margins and fast-moving goods, is in fulfilment and planning. Several players have tried to digitise or aggregate the supply base, but most have discovered that the underlying work is harder to abstract than it seems.
Showroom B2B chose to solve the sourcing challenge at its root with a manufacturing++ approach, and reached profitability in under four years. Founded in 2020, the company built a sourcing engine tailored for value apparel retail, designed to operate at the speed, scale, and price points that this segment demands.
Instead of being just another marketplace, Showroom B2B invested in its own manufacturing units and a tightly integrated network of partner factories. By focusing on core categories like kurtis, T-shirts, denim, and kidswear, and by owning merchandising, quality control, and production planning, they absorbed the complexity of sourcing so their customers don’t have to.
Early traction came from working with small and mid-sized retailers, a segment that still makes up a meaningful and underserved portion of value apparel demand. This allowed Showroom B2B to pressure-test its systems across regional demand, inventory movement, and customer expectations.
That discipline paid off and Showroom B2B was ready for enterprise scale. In late 2024, as large retailers began consolidating their supplier base, Showroom B2B didn’t have to scramble to meet the bar. It had already built deep capacity in its core categories, developed planning systems that held up under volume, and maintained a reliable base of manufacturing partners.
Today Showroom B2B supplies over 20 enterprise retail chains, with a visible order pipeline exceeding ₹250 crore for the current financial year. It hasn’t taken on credit risk, stayed disciplined on margins, and resisted the GMV race, which defies many of the assumptions that have come to define India’s B2B platform playbook.
The model is straightforward and focuses on doing a few things well, like category-specific manufacturing through ESG-compliant partners, an integrated tech stack for planning and visibility, in-house QA to ensure consistency, and direct digital integration for enterprise accounts.
The market around them is moving fast. India’s apparel sector is projected to cross $100B by 2028, with value apparel (priced under ₹2,000) expected to account for a large share. Chains like Zudio are targeting over 1,200 stores by 2027 (up from 545 in 2024). Vishal Mega Mart, V-Mart, and Reliance Trends are all expanding at similar trajectories of over 90% of this new footprint in non-metro markets.
As these chains expand, their sourcing infrastructure also needs to scale with them. That’s what Showroom B2B has built. It has already enabled the sourcing of more than 3.6 million garments with capacity now scaling through a network of 25 manufacturing partners and 2 units of their own, and 100 raw material vendors.
“The future of value retail in India is being built in Tier 2+ cities — but the supply chain needs to be just as modern as the consumer demand,” said Abhishek Dua, Co-founder and CEO of Showroom B2B. “We’re solving that with a combination of manufacturing know-how, technology, and capital discipline.”
We backed Showroom B2B in its early years because it was doing the hard work of making this category function better. What they’ve built is now clear to us that it’s a sourcing backbone for value retail.
In a landscape where value-for-money fashion is becoming a default purchase category for millions of Indian consumers, the ability to procure consistent, high-quality apparel at scale will define long-term success for brands and retailers. We’re excited to see Showroom B2B building the infrastructure to enable that future.