E-way to European brands
E-way to European brands

 

Rock.in, launched three months back is helping a lot of European apparel brands to venture into India by creating an e-market for them. After evaluating the response, these brands might open their retail outlets in the future. Aashish Puri, COO and co-founder, Rock.in shared the strategy he is following with Gunjan Piplani in an exclusive interaction.  

Gunjan Piplani: What is the idea behind your venture?

Aashish Puri: There are a lot of apparel brands who are interested to venture into this market but are not sure about the target audience. E-commerce is the perfect way to enter the market and have a look at the response and then open their retail outlets. The retail space prices are very high and this is what makes e-commerce the perfect way to build an image before investing so much.

GP: How is your website designed and how is the look different from other portals?

AP: The products are showcased in two ways: in the brand corner section of our website and other in the photography section of the magazine. We spend a lot of time highlighting the details of the product in the photographs.

GP: Who are your target consumer right now and how are you marketing your products?

AP: E-commerce is the first step, we are focusing on marketing the brand online and our target is the online consumer who is generally educated, exposed to the brands and is willing to try different and new things. India is a young country and consumers under 25 are the ones we are focusing on.

GP: How are you using the social media as one of your marketing tools?

AP: As I told you, our target is the young ones who are very much active on facebook so whenever we are launching a brand we always make a story available on facebook.

GP:  How many Stock keeping Units on your website?

AP: At present we have under 75,000 SKU’s on our website and we are not adding on to this as we do not want our website to look cluttered.

GP: What is the average ticket size at your website?

AP: We are happy that we have an average ticket size is around INR 3,000.

GP: You are also entering the home segment, what are the products in that segment?

AP: In the home category, we are focusing on bed linen, table ware and home decor products. But we are not aggressive in this category. At present we have over 5,000 SKU’s in this category and we are in talks with a French brand, if it happens we will double the numbers.

GP: What is the growth rate that you are seeing every month?

AP: Last two months we have seen more than 300 per cent growth rate. The encouraging fact is we have grown our customers across 90 cities which is a big step within three months of launch.

GP: There is a lot of grey market which has come into the e-retail arena. What is your take on that?

AP: You know, there is more Ralph Lauren in India than it is being produced by them and they are a lot cheaper than they are being sold in the US. From the very beginning we have worked with the brands and we want to build a name which is authentic in the books of brands and our customers.

GP: If we talk about revenues, what are you looking at after the first year of operations?

AP: I do not want to quote numbers but we are looking to do business in the range of any international retailer operating in India. We do not want to take 5,000 transactions per day but we want to take 500 orders but the heavy orders. That’s the way we will be approaching the market and our revenues.

Stay on top – Get the daily news from Indian Retailer in your inbox
Also Worth Reading