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• You are probably best off just hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    TabTabTabTabTab    \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes and a bit of thinking effort, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c    \1/g

• The most literal and technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using the \= syntax element for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t", 5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special

• You are probably best off just hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    TabTabTabTabTab    \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes and a bit of thinking effort, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c    \1/g

• The most literal and technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using \= for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t", 5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special

• You are probably best off just hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    TabTabTabTabTab    \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes and a bit of thinking effort, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c    \1/g

• The technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using the \= syntax element for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t", 5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special

• You are probably best off just hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    TabTabTabTabTab    \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes and a bit of thinking effort, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r    Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c    \1/g

• The most literal and technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using the \= syntax element for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t", 5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special

• You are probably best off hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r       TabTabTabTabTab       \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r       Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c       \1/g

• The technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using the \= syntax element for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t",5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special

• You are probably best off just hitting dat Tab key 5 times in your example:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r     TabTabTabTabTab     \1/g
  _{(The tabs display as ^I in the Command-line.)}

• More elegantly, you can have vim repeat that typing for you. But with its ≥7 keystrokes and a bit of thinking effort, this technique is only economical for a bigger number of repetitions or characters to be repeated:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\r     Ctrl-f 5a \t Ctrl-c     \1/g

• The technical answer to your question is – at the cost of even much more verbose syntax – using the \= syntax element for substituting by an expression [:help sub-replace-expression], in which you could then employ the repeat() function:
  :%s/\s\(item.\)/\= "\n" . repeat("\t", 5) . submatch(1)/g   _{(Readability spaces not required.)}

Unfortunately, vim does not provide syntactic sugar for repetition (\{5} or otherwise) in the replacement part of the :substitute command; almost none of the special regex syntax for pattern matching [:h pattern-overview] is available for the replacement: :h sub-replace-special