Eyewear startup brand Glassic which designs and manufactures designer sunglasses, inaugurated its flagship store at Indiranagar, Bengaluru recently. The company was available on platform for three years until recently. Co-founded by brothers Kailash and Devesh Nichani in 2015, Glassic makes designer eyewear affordable to masses with a strong focus on quality. Speaking at the occasion of its offline foray, Kailash Nichani said, “Our first store will be an extension of our mission to delight customers with durable fashion and affordability in eyewear segment.”
The founders claim they offer one-year warranty to Glassic products owing to the quality promise. On this occasion, Indianretailer.com catches up with the co-founder duo.
What's the growth potential of designer eyewear market? What are the growth drivers?
As per Euro Monitor's Report, the industry is pegged at almost 4 billion US dollars. Sunglasses + Eyeglasses is at 2 billion US dollars with the Sunglasses category having the fastest growth rate over the period of 2009-14. The forecast CAGR for sunglasses is also the highest at 13.7% as compared to other categories.
The main reason for growth of this segment is that consumers in India today are looking to own more than one pair of sunglasses and are buying multiple pairs to go with their wardrobe, just like they would for other accessories like shoes and bags. Also at a global level by 2020, it is estimated that the number of people with myopia will grow to one-third of the world’s population (2.5 billion).
The numbers above show that the growth is there but we feel there is a big gap in the market as eyewear brands in India are very expensive and not accessible to most consumers. Our mission is to democratise branded eyewear and our belief is that when people want to own multiple pairs of branded eyewear, they would want to buy into a more accessible price point and that's where Glassic comes in.
Why the store?
Eyewear is extremely personal. We try to make it as easy as possible for customers to browse and identify eyewear that will suit their face shape and size on our website. However, some customers still feel the need to try on the eyewear before they buy.
Every day we get tons of customers asking us where we are present offline for them to try our products. We even get customers coming into our corporate office in Bangalore every day to try before buying. And since Bangalore is our biggest market, it made sense to open our first store in the heart of Bangalore.
As a brand, our goal is to be present in front of customers, irrespective of the channel. Customers who are comfortable buying online can shop online, if they want to experience the brand physically, they can drop by our store. We also believe that a retail store is a tangible show of what the brand is about. It's the heart, soul and brain of the brand.
How much investment you have put behind the brand?
We have raised an undisclosed amount (a seed round) from 3 angel groups in November 2017 - The Chennai Angels, LetsVenture & The Lead Angels.
What kind of response your brand has been getting from consumers?
Customers are excited when they discover Glassic online. They're breath taken by our designs and pleasantly surprised about how pocket-friendly our products are. We understand that the eyewear industry isn't just running on functionality and has largely become fashion-centric. Adding a fashion element to our designs enables us to bring our customers back for more every few months. So far, we have crossed 13,000 customers online.
Who is your target consumer? What's the price point of your products?
We target people in the age group of 24-35 as they're the most active online and are up to date with trends. All our products are between the price range of Rs. 1,999 - Rs. 2,999.
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