Bringing a wide line-up of products under one common brand is always a risk for the company to build a wide consumer base that relates to the brand. However, brands have realized that is where the opportunity lies to build trust with consumers and offer a range of services to them.
London-based electronic gadgets and accessories maker WK Life, active in India since 2018, understands that many brands in India have products in different categories but there is no such brand that has a vast product line as it offers a plethora of products ranging from mobile accessories, fashion to bath and body range among others.
Not just building a long product line-up, WK Life, which follows a franchise business model, relies on a strong after-service to provide an all-around customer experience.
“One of the most important factors is that we at WK Life do not compromise on the quality of the products and this has made us more popular among the conscious shoppers. Apart from this, we also provide the fastest after-service facilities to our consumers,” said Rohit Sahni, Co-founder, and CEO, WK Life.
The company was launched in India when Rohit Sahni and his partner Gaurav Dabas took a master franchise of WK Life and opened its first WK Life store in the Mall of India in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. After two years, they invested in the brand and bought the equity for India, UAE, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
The brand has already launched 16 stores across India and is all set to open 50-60 stores by the end of this year. Moreover, the company has also expanded its product range from fashion and beauty to the F&B segment.
The brand is generating maximum revenue from the offline segment as it was initially into offline stores only and then moved to online, also it has more products in its offline stores.
Sahni stated, “Right now, online contributes only 20 percent of our revenue, rest 80 percent comes from offlines stores, however, we have cracked few deals with Amazon and other e-commerce platforms, so hopefully we will be able to give neck-to-neck competition to other players by the end of by 2022. Yes, we are exploring omnichannel strategy and planning big hyper retail chain stores to expand our offline presence.”
Lifestyle: The Winning Category
Of all the categories, lifestyle has been attracting the maximum consumers for WK Life and it is also a top favorite category among women. “So every category in the lifestyle segment is doing exceptionally well and providing good revenues, we have recently entered into the beauty segment and we are expecting good revenues from that vertical too,” Sahni added.
In fact, it is the brand is the only lifestyle brand present at a domestic airport. They have a store at Bangalore airport and will be coming with one more at Guwahati airport this year, the company stated. "We have started stocking up made in India products at our WK courtyard and in coming days will have great numbers in our WK basket," Sahni said.
Sahni further shared: "As per sales, the brand has been clocking 25 percent growth pre-Covid levels due to high volume of inventory range and high footfalls. Our revenue has increased by 30 percent post-Covid and gained pace as per trends and market scenario."
Challenges Faced
The major challenge that the brand has faced over these years is the Covid-19 outbreak. Being a retail chain and due to lockdown, the stores were closed and the business was affected to a great extent. The brand had overcome the challenges by working on various strategies to grow the business further.
Just after the second wave, the brand opened a few more stores at good locations as a lot of brands had given up their spaces due to bad hits caused by the lockdown.
Moreover, the brand is currently focusing aggressively on influencer marketing to increase its presence.
The brand sources its raw material from 18 factories in Shenzhen and it has now started soucing from India as well as it claims to be focusing on Make in India products. As far as delivery is concerned, it has four delivery partners to manage its offline and online logistics.
Future Plans
It is expecting over 100 signed franchises to go live within the next 1.5-2 years. "Our main strategy to make this happen is high-profit margins and increasing brand awareness in the market," the brand stated.
"For 2022, we are dedicating 30 percent of our budget to marketing. We will be going aggressive on social media, along with e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and other B2C channels. Yes, we are already exploring social commerce options and we are live on many of them," Sahni concluded.
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