Exclusively.com, building a bigger seller ecosystem in online fashion

Online fashion is burgeoning India’s eCommerce market, backed by innovation and dexterity. With the industry that is set to grow almost 4 times in the coming 5 years, many startups in online fashion landscape have created a niche in almost no time.
With new models and zeal to do something out of the box, these startups have given quite a tough time to even some of the big boys of this space. Discounts and swanky online catalogues have drawn Indian shopaholics to online portals that now hold the lion share of overall retail in the country.
In a candid conversation with Retailer Media, Siddhant Rana, Head Business Development, Exclusively.com shared his ideas and strategies towards making Exclusively, an unlimited fashion destination in the online space. He also spoke about some dos and don’ts as being a startup and how the industry is evolving with the passage of time.

Share with the journey with Exclusively.com so far?
Exclusively has been around for a very long time. It is one India’s largest online designer portal but very soon to be India’s ultimate fashion destination as well. I have been with Snapdeal, which is the holding company for Exclusively for more than one and half years now and I have recently started my journey with Exclusively. So, lots have to be done while we grow.

What special do you have for consumers for this festive season?
We are still in the growth phase but yes we have our promotions going on for Diwali. This is the time of the year where maximum consumption happens in the retail space. We have new designs that designers have release and we are looking forward to promoting them.

What turnarounds do you expect?
This is going to be the most aggressive Diwali till date. We are too expecting very huge turnouts and this is going to be our biggest Diwali. We don’t see this as a turning point or a competition. We are only beginning to see the likes of what eCommerce is going to be.

What are the major challenges that you currently face?
We see opportunities rather than challenges. Fashion as a space is very exciting and this consumption that is buying fashion is still maturing. If you look at China, almost 35-40 percent of consumption that happens in eCommerce is in online apparel and when you compare that with India, it’s a very smaller portion and so the opportunity here is big. In terms of margins also, if you look at fashion in general, it’s a very lucrative space. We are very excited to grow our presence. We are going to definitely increase our offering in the coming few months and that is going to be our focus in terms of building a bigger seller ecosystem.

mCommerce is the talk of the town. How do you see this as a trend and what plans you have for the same?
If you are looking at an online company, definitely mobile as a channel cannot be ignored. For most of the companies, the majority of their traffic is coming from the online space. That for sure means that we will have to aggressively enter into mobile space. However, this is not going to be the only channel either. All businesses at the end of the day are going to become omni-channel. Web, WAP and mobile apps along with offline presence is a must in retail space.

A lot of eCommerce companies now have their Private Labeled Products (PLP). Do you any plans for the same?
I think in the near term, we are going to focus more on promoting the existing brands. Maybe in the future we might step into this but not as off now.