Strategic Overview of Matalan’s Expansion into the Indian Sustainable Fashion Market
Entrepreneurship refers to the capability as well as readiness to develop, organize and commence a business enterprise, to generate profit. The present report will base on Matalan, a fashion and homeware retailer company of the United Kingdom that going to expand its business in international market of India by offering the sustainable clothes. The report will outline the demand and trends within an international market. It will also highlight vale proposition for the chosen business and recognize innovative business model. Further, it will also explain the most appropriate innovation concept for the business and justify its significance. Along with this, report depicts the role of entrepreneurship in wealth creation within international marketplace.
Matalan is one of the leading companies in the UK that deals in fashion and homeware products, with a mission to be the first choice for outstanding family value. The company has more than 270 stores across the UK and internationally and operates an integrated e-commerce platform (About Matalan, 2025). Founded in 1985 by John Hargreaves and headquartered in Liverpool, UK, Matalan has achieved strong success in the domestic market. As a result, to further grow and expand its business, the company is planning to enter the Indian market with a focus on sustainable fashion clothing. This strategic move aims to increase the customer base, enhance market share, and improve profitability by offering affordable family fashion wear, an area often discussed in academic studies and supported through Online Assignment Help UK for business expansion analysis.
In the context of expansion in India, It is important for the company to effectively evaluate global market demand and trends concerning with its offering product in the international market.
In the modern era, consumers' tastes and preferences change in a significant manner. After the period of the pandemic, customers become eco-conscious as a result, they are more likely to prefer purchasing the sustainable products (Gazi et al, 2024). In terms of the fashion industry, demand for the sustainable merchandising is increasing all over the world. During the year 2024, Global Sustainable Fashion Market size was amounted at USD 8.1 billion and it is expected to reach at USD 33.1 Billion by the year 2033, at a CAGR OF 22.9% within the forecast period 2024-2033 (Global Sustainable Fashion Market, 2025). In present time, 67% of customers give priority to sustainability before making a purchasing decision, hence there is a rapid increase in demand of companies with sustainable merchandise offerings.
In India, there is a high demand for sustainable clothes as a significant number of customer preferences are shifted towards sustainability. Within the country 60% of Indian consumers greatly prefer and choose sustainable products. In addition to this, it has been identified that sustainable fashion market within India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.6% within the year 2021 to 2026 (Eco-Friendly Elegance: Navigating the Landscape of Sustainable Fashion in India, 2025). Thus, referring overall evaluation, it can be stated that for Matalan’s expansion, India is one of the suitable countries.
Evaluation of global market trends analysis for the expansion of business is as under:
Matalan has a several opportunities while expanding its business to the Indian market. It is as under:
Political factor: It consist rules and regulation of the government, the Indian market has a political stability and effective international policies. This leads to furnish opportunity for the Matalan to establish its business in a proficient manner without any risk and uncertainty (Gill et al, 2023).
Economic factor: In Indian market, good economic growth result into high purchasing power and demand for products. Indian economy is estimated to grow by 6.4% during the financial year 2024-25 (India Fiscal Year GDP Growth, 2025). Increasing trend is recognized as a good indicator because it directly associated with the people’s disposable income and purchasing power. Thus, increasing income level entices customers to make purchase of organic clothes.
Social factors: The factors include taste and preference of the customers. In Indian market, customer’s preference shifts to sustainable fashion hence, Matalan has an opportunity to increase its profitability level in a significant manner. Within India, it is identified that 60% of consumers willing to pay premium for the sustainability products (India willing to pay for premium, 2025). This opportunity allows the company to offer stylish and high-quality merchandise also while focusing on the premium customers, leads to high profitability. Also, In Indian market, there is high demand for the sustainable merchandise but there is a limited presence of the companies offering the same. Therefore, Matalan has an opportunity to fill the gap in effective manner and create a good market for its business.
Technological factor: Indian market is rich in using the technological advances such as AI, automation, data analysis and so more within the business (Hammer and Karmakar, 2021). Expanding business within an Indian market, company has an opportunity to adopt these technologies within the business for better and smooth operation.
Environmental factors: The Indian market is rich in the availability of the raw material for the sustainable merchandise production (Sinha, Sharma and Agrawal, 2023). It leads to provide opportunity to the Matalan to produce its products in cost-effective manner, this leads to help the company to charge low price initially to grab the attention of greater number of customer. It also helps the organization to attain its mission of offering of affordable family fashion products.
Legal factor: Indian has a well defined and clear rules and laws for the international trade concerning export, import, conducting business and so more. The clear laws furnish opportunity to the Matalan to conduct business with ease, result in successful business venture.
The opportunities come with some of threats for the business. Expansion of Matalan business within the Indian market has some of challenges/ threats, it is as under:
Social factor: One of the great challenges for the company is offering sustainable clothes at the low cost to grab the attention of price-sensitive customers. Within India customer have price-sensitive behavior that makes difficult for the company to grab attention of this target market as offering sustainable clothes is quite expensive.
Fast fashion culture: The Indian market have a fast fashion culture where consumer gives priorities to trends and quick turnover of clothing (Bhandari et al, 2022). These lead to make difficult for the Matalan to compete as well as focus on quick production turnaround.
Compete with the conventional brands: It is identified that many customers within India are price-sensitive as well as prioritize affordability over sustainability. This customer behavior creates a challenge for the Matalan to increase its customer base in Indian market and compete with the conventional brands.
By doing evaluation of the opportunities and challenges within the Indian market for the Matalan`s sustainable clothes business, it has been identified that opportunities effectively outweigh threats. The opportunity of the successful establishment of the business due to high demand allows the company to create its good market presence, customer base as well as increases profitability and productivity in an effective & efficient manner. This opportunity makes the expansion a profitable venture for the Matalan, hence its outweigh challenges in the significant manner. Moreover, the company has opportunity to fulfill the gap in Indian market concerning sustainable fashion product demand and supply. Also, expansion allows the Matalan to offer sustainable fashion product at affordable cost and it is accessible to the price-sensitive customers. Thus, opportunities are more sound than challenges in the Indian market. The threats and challenges related to price-sensitive customer, fast-fashion culture and compete with conventional brand can be overcome with grabbing the opportunities in the best manner.
Value proposition refers to the statement clearly recognizes the advantages and benefits of the organization`s product and services will deliver to the consumers (Saenz, 2023). The Value proposition for the Matalan in the Indian market will be as follows:
| Product | Customer | ||
| Benefits | Experience | Wants | Fears |
| The sustainable merchandise of Matalan is best for all skin type It is durable and longevity | The sustainable merchandise of the Matalan leads to the enhancement of experience and satisfaction of the customers as they get stylish clothes at affordable cost. | To get the sustainable merchandise at the affordable prices | High cost |
| Features | Needs | ||
| Environment-friendly, Local production, Free from harmful chemicals | To get sustainable merchandise in a stylish and trendy manner | ||
| Product | Ideal Customer | Substitutes | The sustainable merchandise of Matalan effectively substitutes conventional merchandises. |
| Sustainable merchandises | Ideal customer for Matalan in Indian market includes customer consisting both male and females of all age group, that demand sustainable merchandise |
Referring to the value proposition canvas, it is identified that sustainable merchandise of Matalan allows the Indian customer to enhance their experience and satisfaction by purchasing the company products at cost-effective manner. Organization`s product fulfill the needs of customer regarding wearing stylish and trendy clothes while fulfilling the market gap.
6 Years | PhD
Matalan to expand its business in the Indian market focuses on innovative business model i.e. Bricks-and-clicks model. According to the model, the company expands its business and attracts market demand through physical store in India and e-commerce website (Böttcher et al, 2021). To attain the sustainable growth and profitability the model is quite effective as it leads to grab the attention of customers with the different shopping preferences, result in increasing sales for the company. Also, the model assist the company to offer more convenient shopping experience to the customers as company able to offer its sustainable products to the customer located at the distant area with the help of online website of company. In addition to this, the Matalan adopts environmental friendly business model, referring to the model, it focuses on using eco-friendly business practices within its operation (Bresciani et al, 2021). The company focuses on implementing green packaging and waste management for the purpose of sustainable growth.
Moreover the company with the purpose of successful establishment emphasizes on collaborating with different businesses such as supplier of sustainable raw materials, transportation organizations, advertisement agencies, warehouses dealers, e-commerce platforms and so more. Partnership with other businesses allows the organization to smoothen their operations and get a competitive edge from the other businesses. Apart from this, Matalan will fund its expansion strategy by referring the different sources such as bank loan and crowd sourcing. The company borrowed fixed amount of money from the financial institution for the particular period of time. Also, referring to the crowdfunding, Matalan funds its business from a large number of people through online platform.
The concept of innovation simply defined as a new method, idea or product. In other words, innovation refers to a practical implementation of idea that leads to introduction of new goods and services or enhancement in offering products and services. There are different concepts of innovation, it is as under:
Open innovation: Open innovation is considered as a strategic approach that embraces collaborative efforts and actively looks for the external input, enclose ideas, expertise and technologies. In other words, open innovation concept act as a practice of organizations and business sourcing ideas from the internal as well as external sources. Information and knowledge sharing and looking for the people outside the company with the aim of solution and suggestions result in innovation (Bigliardi et al, 2021). This kind of the innovation furnishes a great emphasis on understanding the needs of the customers as well as involving the customers within the process of innovation. It leads to co-create value through actively engaging customers in furnishing ideas, insights and feedbacks. Apart from this, there are some of critics of the open innovation as it is highly difficult to control. Also, it is more complex as a result legal and intellectual property issues arise.
Disruptive innovation: It refers to the phenomenon that occur when a new entrants into a market change the status quo through furnishing better quality products or new technology to the existing ones for a lower price. Disruptive innovation means a process of changing or transforming a highly sophisticated, expensive product, offering or services into one that is more affordable, simpler and accessible for the wide range of the customer or broader population (Kivimaa et al, 2021). In other words, disruptive innovation implies for the one that builds a new market, creates value network and enters at the bottom of the existing market and at the end displaces as an established market-leadings firms, products as well as alliances. However, it is evaluated that the innovation consists of high risk as when the innovation first enters the market, it initially serves only to a small number of people. Thus, entering into market for the first time creates high financial risk.
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From the effective evaluation of the different innovation concept, it has been analyzed that for the Matalan sustainable merchandise offering business, open innovation is the most suitable one. Open innovation is suitable for the organization because it allows the organization to access to a broader pool of ideas as well as expertise via tapping into the external sources of innovation such as customers, suppliers and other startups. Using the innovation concept, Matalan can enhance its product range in an effective and efficient manner. This result into decline in the competition level and satisfy the needs of the greater number of customers. In addition to this, open innovation acts as a flexible and adaptable concept as it allows the organization to sustain in a changing market dynamics. Through leveraging the external input, company can rapidly and effectively respond to the customer needs, emerging trends and technological innovation, leads to more growth. Thus, open innovation is a suitable for the Matalan for the purpose of succession in the international market via the improvement in offering goods and services to satisfy the needs of customers.
The concept of the open innovation is plays a significant role in maintaining a competitive advantage for the company in an expanding market. Open innovation focus on leveraging external knowledge and capabilities from the research institutions, suppliers, customers as well as start-ups. This leads to help the organization to gain better insight about the market dynamic, customers, other business capability and so more. Through accessing the wide range of expertise and perspectives, organization will be able to develop more innovative and competitive products & services. This leads to allow the company to maintain competitive advantage within the international market (Pundziene, Nikou and Bouwman, 2022). In addition to this, open innovation helps the organization to kept R&D cost low as referring to this kind of innovation organization able to access the technologies, resource and expertise without having to invest in internal R&D, leads to overcome cost level while allows offering high-quality products according to customer needs. This leads to assist company to offer at affordable terms as compared to its competitors correspondingly allows in maintain competitive edge internationally.
Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the wealth creation within the international marketplace via its impact on the economic growth as well as job creation. This leads to create wealth for the entrepreneur and others as well. Also, by setting the business entity or new venture, entrepreneurs introduce high-quality and innovative products and services, encourages competition and drive economic growth result in creation of the wealth in efficient and effective manner (Galindo-Martín, Castaño-Martínez and Méndez-Picazo, 2021). Moreover, entrepreneurship plays an important role in providing individual with the opportunity to attain financial independence as well as accumulate and create personal wealth. Successful entrepreneurs build thriving businesses, able to offer several financial rewards leads to personal wealth creation. Apart from this, entrepreneurship furnishes several kinds of opportunities for wealth creation by providing required support and resources. Entrepreneur via provide better access to capital, mentorship as well as supportive business ecosystem, enable the company`s employees to give their best within the organization. This leads to help in determine the success of the venture, result in creation of the wealth in a significant manner.
Along with this, entrepreneur always remain forward to take risks, as it is not possible that business always succeed. In the business or international market, to keep potential for wealth creation high, entrepreneur required to carefully manage and assess risk to maximize the chances of success. For this, it is important to weigh the possible rewards against the risk involved as well as making informed decisions. In addition, one of the major aspects of entrepreneurship is innovation. Within the business, entrepreneurs are constantly looking new opportunities and ways to address market requirements more effectively. The innovative ideas as well as solutions lead to disrupt the traditional market and builds new industries. This disruption usually results into increase competition, enhance products and services, it ultimately result in wealth creation (Ughulu, 2022).
Conclusion
By summing up this report, it has been concluded that entrepreneurship plays an important role in innovation. The present study identified that Matalan a fashion retailer company can expand its business in international market of India as the country has high demand for the sustainable merchandises. The market has several opportunities for company like better growth prospect, increasing market share, better access to sustainable material and so more while have a social challenges such as price-sensitive customers, competition with conventional brand and so more. The report included creation of value proposition as the sustainable products of company benefits in offering clothes for all skin type leads to enhance customer experience. In addition, it identified that company use bricks and mortar and environmental-friendly innovative business model and focus on open innovation to maintain competitive edge.
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