Encashing on foreign experience
Encashing on foreign experience

Claiming to be the only Indian e-retailer to offer customised ethnic and western wear to the consumers with their own manufacturing unit, warehouse and design team, co-founders Narender Kumar and Pankaj Thapar of efello.com share their take on their recent entry in the Indian market and their future plans….

Vrinda Oberai (VO): You offer customised ethnic and western wear to the consumers. How do you practically carry out that?

Narender Kumar and Pankaj Thapar (NK and PT): Yes, we are the only e-retailers to have our own manufacturing unit and team of designers to manufacture Indian style ethnic wear and western wear. We manufacture ethnic wear which includes suits, sherwanis, saris, lahengas, kurtas etc and western wear includes jeans, t-shirts, trousers, shirts, formal and informal wear. With our own manufacturing mechanism, which is supported by team of designers, tailors and stylish, we are able to offer customisation on ethnic wear as required by the consumers. The team continuously works to keep the stocks and fabric ready in the warehouse. We usually keep the average size of cloths ready. As soon as an order is placed online, the team gets ready to work on the customisation part, alter the size and the product gets delivered the same day of order from Delhi NCR.

 

VO: Where is your manufacturing unit, warehouse and design team located? How do you plan to expand in this space?

NK and PT: Yes we have worked behind the scenes to get all the necessary aspects of e-retailing fixed before we actually announce our entry in the market. Now we have equipped ourselves with our own set of design team, tailors, warehouse unit and manufacturing unit. All these are located in Okhla, Phase-II. Our headquarters is also located in Okhla from where we operate. We have already registered over 1800 users daily who visit our site and make purchase. We are getting good response from Delhi NCR, tier II and tier III cities. We expect 4500-5000 daily clicks in another 4-5 months. Our international exposure is helping us in gaining grounds in the Indian market. We have started with western and ethnic wear. We will gradually extend to bags, jewellery and fashion accessories. We want to break the problems of logistic and delivery system and are working to reduce the delivery time to 4 hours in Delhi/NCR.

 

VO: What is the USP for your brand?

NK and PT: We have been working to strengthen our backend so that we can come in the market with full force. Our USPs lies in our own warehouse, own manufacturing unit, in-house team of designers and tailors, exposure of the international market in the segment and offering customisation on the ethnic wear. We believe we are ahead of the existing players in the segment and in no times we would be among top five.

 

VO: What is your target audience? What are the focus areas?

NK and PT: We are targeting the global audience with our presence in over 72 countries. Our target audience includes the middle and upper middle class between the age group of 18 to 40 years. We have started with the ethnic and western wear and would gradually extend to fashion accessories and jewellery, footwear, innerwear, etc.

 

VO: What kind of revenue figures you're targeting for the current financial year and what shall be your marketing strategy?

NK and PT: As startup we are generating good revenue. We have touched Rs 8 crore last year and we expect Rs 10-12 crore in the next financial year.

 

VO: Give us a backgrounder for Koyal Online Pvt Ltd. What has been the learning?

NK and PT: Koyal Online Pvt Ltd founded by us in 2008 - is engaged in the manufacturing of ready-made garments ranging from Indian ethnic wear to western outfits for men women and kids. The company has been promoting the creations under the brand name D Jeans London (for western wear) and Shree (for Indian ethnic wear).

We started exporting ready-made garments in the early 90s and latter migrated to UK and started importing pashmina scarfs, kurtis and slawar suits. After becoming a known name in the sector, we finally launched efello in India to serve the Indian online customers.

We started with international market which is very different as compared with domestic market. Unlike international market, India faces the problems of logistics, payment modes, timely delivery system, etc. We are working to overcome these problems here and provide a convenient shopping option to the growing number of Indian online consumers. We started with ethnic product, now we have western wear and bags; gradually we are adding other categories like jewellery, accessories, innerwear, footwear, etc.

 

VO: How do you plan to position and portray your brand, given the fierce competition in the market?

NK and PT: We want to be known as “one stop solution for all your fashion desire” and this is going to be our tag line. As market grows competition increases, and that’s good for all retailers. Our USPs will keep us ahead.

 

VO: There is already boom in the segment and few leaders have already captured the market. How will you cope with that? Don't you think this is late entry in the market.

NK and PT: We do not agree to that, we are rather much ahead in the segment. We have an international experience which is tough as compared to the domestic market. We understand the consumer’s behavior which would help us in the Indian market. It’s true that leaders in the segment have already emerged but our expertise and backend support would help us. There is a saying “better late than never”. We believe this is the right time to enter as the sector is on boom.

 

VO: Why did you first choose the international market and then decided to launch in India?

NK and PT: We had been operating in the international market through our export business that was the

 reason we decided to start with international market first  because we have an experience if 12 years in serving the global consumers. We are operating in 72 countries and in India every state is like a country. We are sure that we will achieve our targets.

 

VO: Which all categories you are dealing with and is there any plan to add other category? If yes what categories?

NK and PT: At present we are in ethnic wear, western wear and in jewellery. We have a plan to enter in foot wear, bags, accessories, inner wear, sun glasses, appliances, mobile handsets, etc. gradually we will increase our product profile further as the demand rises.

 

VO: Are you focusing on achieving the fastest delivery system? What is the time frame you are targeting to achieve? 

NK and PT: Yes, that’s going to be our next target. We are looking to strengthen our in-house delivers system further for Delhi NCR, for out stations we are talking to various courier companies or else we will start our in-house system for speedy delivery in tier II and III cities as well.

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