Our collection meets international standards having unique colour palette and designs: Riddhi Jain

Often, anything from lose pajamas to shorts tick off as after office wear or night wear. With only a few brands catering to high-quality nightwear, loungewear is still a fancy fashion choice for many Indians. Breaking many myths, 23-year-old Riddhi Jain, founder of NeceSera, highlights what quality comfort wear can do customers of all age groups. In a conversation with Indian Retailer, she talks about her international designs, price-conscious customers and the challenges to create higher brand value.

Tell us about NeceSera and your journey so far.
When I returned to India after my studies abroad, I realized that most of the textile and apparel brands focus on fashion and loungewear was mostly an untapped segment. The brands that had a separate line of loungewear clothing were either very expensive or the quality of clothes was sub-standard. I knew this segment had potential and could throw a lot of business opportunities. Since my family runs garment business, I initially started off with help. I worked for six months just on choosing and deciding the right kind of fabric that needs to go into the making of loungewear clothing and worked with international designers to create the mood board. Through our mood board, we create different designs and patterns and they change with every season. In August last year, we did a soft launch and have been aggressively expanding only now.

Loungewear is a very niche segment. What kind of demand are you expecting?
When we started off, I was not sure of how the customers would respond because it is indeed  very niche. Although most of the people spend more time in loungewear clothing rather than fashion clothes, the importance of loungewear clothing goes unnoticed. We are introducing quirky collections and variety of patterns so that there is a wider reach. We have connected with a lot of customers through offline retailing and the response has been good. We are now working towards generating more sales.

Indian customers are price conscious and anything will tick off as an after-work wear. What challenges do you see in building the brand?
For starters, the challenge lies in making people understand the concept of loungewear and the need for them to buy loungewear. The mindset of the market is why I should be spending so and so on loungewear. Hence, our focus now is on creating higher brand value at a lesser budget.

You are a millennial yourself, as a young buyer do you see any gaps in the loungewear segment and how do you bridge the gap in the market?
Lack of quality loungewear clothing is a big void in the market and NeceSera is working towards this. We want our customers to experience what superior quality comfort wear can do and understand where the difference lies. Our complete range of clothing is focusing on bringing what’s not already there in the market.

You have roped in international designers for domestic customers. What is the strategy?
I wanted to bring international designs to Indian customers and not just localize the designs. Our collection meets international standards and the different color palette and designs are fresh in the market. Also, we started off with just night wear and now we have moved into lounge wear, as we increase our products.

What marketing strategies have you lined up considering it’s a niche segment?
We started on e-commerce and social media helped a lot in marketing the brand. We a couple of pop-ups in the last few months, we connected with customers who got a touch-and-feel experience, which only helped widen our customer base and drove high sales. Word-of-mouth feedback has helped our brand a lot and many customers return for the quality of fabric they get with NeceSera. 

What are your expansion plans?
After our soft launch, we have aggressively launched our brand only now. We will continue to sell on e-commerce, while offline retailing will take place through pop-ups. Brick-and-mortar retailing is not an immediate plan, but depending on the brand value, we will venture into offline stores.