Retail Reloaded: Vivek Biyani's Broadway set to pave the way for a fresh outlook on the retail industry

Broadway Studios, an idea grounded in content to commerce, will serve as the experiential arm of the retail brand. It will act as an in-house studio for creators to partner with brands in generating content and will host continuous events that resonate with customers. It will be a vibrant hub where brands, creators and customers can interact and co-create, also serving as a strong distribution channel for the content produced. To further enhance the experience, Broadway is also set to feature a team of experts, including dermatologists, stylists, and make-up artists, providing personalised advice and recommendations to customers.

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Biyani came up with the concept of Broadway with the philosophy that every time the core form of communication changes, commerce around it changes. In today's world, social media has taken centre stage, shifting brand building from traditional large-scale television advertising to platforms like Instagram. Now it's about creating content and engaging in personalised communication to demonstrate a brand's relevance to consumers. “We thought that physical retail in itself needs a reinvention.” 

Studio and stage spaces for creators redefines the retail space at the Broadway store. Image: Madhu Kapparath

Following the footsteps of Kishore Biyani, who is often referred to as 'India's Modern Retail King', Vivek Biyani is looking to create a new wave in the retail industry.

Former billionaire Kishore Biyani founded stores like Pantaloons and Big Bazaar which changed the way Indians perceived retail, and later founded the Future Group, which became one of the biggest conglomerates, and later acquired many other brands including 7-Eleven, Golden Harvest, and Mother Earth to name a few. However, he suffered major losses in the last few years that forced his company to the state of liquidation in November 2023. Pantaloons and Big Bazaar were acquired by Aditya Birla Group and Reliance respectively. 

The idea of Broadway came about with a question. In a world where now consumers are discovering products and brands on social media and engaging with the content of a brand on the platform, what would a world of physical retail environment for these customers mean? As per Biyani, for the new-age consumers, the physical retail spaces have become monotonous, and they value experience more than a transaction. To bring about this change, Broadway came into the picture, with the vision of creating a “theatre of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands”.

The Broadway store in Delhi has already locked more than 150 brands, including Aqualogica, DermaCo, Minimalist, Belif, Wellbeing Nutrition, Kapiva, Oziva, The Good Bug, Comet, Suta, Mokobara, trueBrowns, Bold Care and The Label Life, to name a few. Brands are being finalised for the upcoming stores in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

How does this concept work?

According to Biyani, if a brand decides to launch a physical store today, the cost of putting it up, logistics, renting a space, capital expenditure, etc will require a huge amount, leaving aside marketing and collaborations. To solve this, Broadway provides a platform for brands to acquire a space at a Broadway store for a time period of three to 12 months, with a fee starting from Rs50,000 to Rs200,000 per month based on the brand’s category. This fee will include rent, electricity, house keeping, logistics in terms of storing spaces, and everything else one needs in a physical retail store. “I think from a brand perspective, it's the simplest way a brand can participate to engage consumers in a physical environment,” says Biyani. The brands can even switch cities and appear in Broadway stores around the country for the three months if they wish to. “The idea is for brands to acquire new consumers. If any brand today wants to go and open their own store, I think the Broadway proposition is 1/10th of the cost.”

Broadway’s business model is simple, and is not based on revenue sharing. The fee that brands have to pay Broadway is inclusive of all the means and facilities available at the store, and whatever business happens at Broadway for a brand, from a retail sales perspective, that money is directed back to the brand.

Biyani explains that for a concept like Broadway, freshness is important. He believes that it can be achieved by churning out 30 percent of the brands every three months, or if brands bring about new collections every one or two months into Broadway. 

How does the concept work for content creators? 

Content creation and influencer marketing are fast-growing industries. “We feel that the creator economy is here to stay. Creators today are playing an important role in how consumers are discovering brands and are an integral part of the new economy, which Broadway and newer D2C brands are a part of,” says Biyani. Today, if a creator is looking to make content, they look for spaces, which usually come at a high cost. Broadway aims to facilitate this by giving creators a space to interact with different brands under one roof while creating content and collaborating with brands, eventually making money. A Creator’s Studio with cutting-edge technology and digital tools will be made available for creators and brands to leverage. Broadway will soon be announcing the ‘Broadway Creator Commune’, which will act like a pass for creators to use the Broadway space and collaborate with brands. “For a creator, there is no organised plan that has been made. I think that's what Broadway wants to do,” says Biyani. 

Standing Out

Biyani and team are not looking to replace the spend on platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, and telling their customers to come to Broadway. “We feel that a physical retail space is still relevant to the life of consumers. But I think what consumers, especially the younger cohort, wants to do in a physical space is not just the act of shopping alone,” says Biyani. The objective for Broadway, as per Biyani, is to create an experiential way for brand engagement with consumers and content creators. “The starting point is not shopping at all. Broadway is not here to say that you should do the transaction on Broadway only. Tomorrow, if one wants to go and do it online, we are happy with it. The core idea is how do you get the brand engagement going for consumers and the physical environment.” 

Getting the founding team together was an easy task, according to Biyani. When he went to the partners with the idea, they were all sold to the concept in one go. "The fact that we can leave a mark, and a sense of community with the brand is something I deeply resonate with. I am always inclined towards investing in a good, unique story that can be scaled and help build a legacy—be it a film or a product. So, when Vivek approached me with the unique concept of ‘Broadway’, I was on board immediately,” says actor and entrepreneur Rana Daggubati. 

Daggubati believes that Broadway's collaborative model will reshape how we engage with content, driving deeper consumer connections and creating unparalleled engagement opportunities. “In today's creator-driven universe, it's not just about shopping, it's about delivering the 'aha' experience every time. Broadway acknowledges this by providing an immersive experience and a platform where both brands and consumers have the power to be creators,” he adds.

In the next few years, Broadway plans to get into more Tier II and III cities. “At the end of the day, I think there are a lot of consumption pockets in India where Broadway can be very relevant. I think we will eventually expand to all these pockets,” concludes Biyani.