How this computer engineer is making the most of brand licensing?

After completing engineering, Anubhav Gupta started a daily deals aggregation portal. The deals industry hit the bottom in no time, but by that time Gupta had his hands on the know-how of eCommerce industry. He amalgamated his expertise in tech and eRetail with the background in garment industry and launched Rigo – the fashion label for fast moving generation. Entirely bootstrapped, Rigo has off late acquired the licensing rights of Shopkeeper by GG – the retail brand by YouTube celebrity Gaurav Gera, shared Gupta in a candid interaction with License India. Talk to us about Rigo’s journey so far.

The brand was created in 2012. I wanted to startup something of my own, so I amalgamated my knowledge of tech and eRetail with the background of garment business and formulated RIGO – the everyday style T-shirt brand. An online only brand, Rigo is growing at an y-o-y rate of 40 per cent. When we figured out that we wanted to foray into fashion eCommerce, my thought process was to create a fashion line that anybody could pull off.

And where does the brand licensing fits in as retail strategy for Rigo?

We were talking to couple of licensing agencies some three years ago, but at that point of time our main focus was on increasing the sales and numbers through marketplaces. When we started focusing on our website and marketing it, we figured out that licensing was a good retail strategy. Through licensing we could connect with some good names and start leveraging that brand name traffic to our website and increase brand awareness. We wanted to connect with known names and bank on them. As far as sales go, we have grown along with eCommerce industry. We are available on all the major eCommerce websites as of now.

What potential did you see in Shopkeeper by GG?

Since the beginning, I was interested in an IP that had a fun element in it. I being an ardent admirer of the standup comedy shows, was particularly inclined towards the brand Shopkeeper by GG. I am personally a fan of all his videos. When I saw the opportunity, I decided to go ahead with it. The entire collection can be checked here.

What are your strategies to retail this licensed collection?

We have started with 20 SKUs under Shopkeeper by GG collection just to test out the market. We have planned the next collection towards the end of June. While the current collection had more of the quotes, the collection being launched in June will be about the characters and the caricatures.

What other brands you may look out for?

As of now we have plans to test out the selection for next 6 months and then basis upon the market response we will take the next step. Since the day this collection has been launched I have not been looking at the order numbers I have just been looking at the traffic. The moment Gaurav Gera himself started promoting the collection on his social media we witnessed a spike in the website traffic.

Are there any plans to foray into offline space as well? 

At the moment we do not have any plans to come up with offline stores however we're started working with a few offline retailers and wholesalers just to test out the market because I never experience offline and online Industries operate very differently in terms of the style demands and collections. For instance, we launch a new collection or catalog every two months whereas in case of offline retail, the spring summer collection is launched somewhere around winter. I believe online industry acts faster to the current trends as compared to offline. That is the reason that we are taking it really slow in the offline market.