How CHKOKKO is Innovating its Products to Stay Ahead of the Curve
How CHKOKKO is Innovating its Products to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Activewear is one of the fastest-growing segments in India with the sector estimated to reach Rs 997.8 billion by 2024, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.59 percent. In fact, to the industry’s surprise, the segment is outperforming in India over the fast fashion, ethnic wear, and formal footwear segment in the post-pandemic period. Thus, the sector holds a lot of potential for the brands that have already set up the right pricing and business model to make the best of the present opportunity. 
 
Mihir Parashar, Co-founder of a popular activewear brand CHKOKKO said: “We are constantly innovating and creating new designs and we have one of the biggest product assortments in the activewear category, with more than 2,500 designs and 20,000 SKUs. We are also extremely competitive in our pricing and product quality, which gives us a huge advantage over our competitors."
 
The brand has closed last year at a GMV of Rs 44 crore. This year it is expected to achieve Rs 75 crore GMV. If you look at the product range, it starts from Rs 299 and goes up to Rs 2,999. The brand is also planning to expand into footwear and innerwear categories. 
 
Pain-Points in the Activewear Market

One of the pain points start-ups have to face in the category is that the activewear market is dominated by international brands and they’ve been in India for decades – hence it’s a major challenge to build a brand in the middle of all of it.  
 
Parashar stated, “First challenge was to offer a product that customers could see more value, compared to these international brands. Hence we offered great quality products at much lower prices than the international brands. Another major challenge was competition from new local brands, we managed it by becoming the category leader in activewear on marketplaces. Today many of our products rank 1 on Amazon and other marketplaces.” 
 
The brand also claims to have a robust customer feedback management system, where they create and develop new features in their products based on customer feedback.

Founded in 2018, with a small factory in Ludhiana, Punjab, CHKOKKO has come a long way. "So far we have shipped more than 20 lack products. We have now extended into both men's and women's categories with more than 20,000 SKUs across T-shirts, Shorts, Tracksuits, Tights, and Tackpants," the company stated. 
 
“There is about a 50:50 split of in-house manufacturing to outsourced manufacturing. We design products in-house and then based on category and volume of production we decide on sourcing. Our product cost is about 30 percent of the product sales price,” Parashar further added. 
 
The brand started by listing its products on Amazon and it did PLAs (Product Listing Ads) to acquire its first 100 customers.
 
Future Plans

In the near term, as already stated, the brand plans to expand to new categories like footwear and innerwear. Secondly, the brand wishes to expand to offline channels in the next 5 years to have a strong omnichannel presence. 

“We are projected to grow to Rs 300 crore GMV by 2025 and Rs 1,000 crore by 2030,” the company shared. 
 
 
READ MORE: Retail Businesses Grow 24 pc in May against Pre-Pandemic Level

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