How STRUTT is creating a difference in Indian fashion and lifestyle space?

Kindly shed light on the journey of STRUTT. How did the brand start and journey so far? Also shed light on your entrepreneurial journey? 

Strutt is from a Suburb of Delhi where it dreams about creating beautiful, original Carry on Travel gear and is inspired by all the hustle bustle and the very busy lifestyle. We understand what really matters: Faith, family, local community, quality, sustainability, craftsmanship, and taking the time to make something good and we make sure a little bit of everything goes into handcrafting each and every bag.

When we had started we were mostly manufacturing for other private labels and small time Agents for the purpose of corporate gifting. We then got extremely lucky with Walmart and that’s when we got direct exposure to the customer. And so Strutt was born. From there onwards there was no looking back.

 We believe we can change the Travel world, one bag at a time. 

 Indian fashion and accessory market is already crowded with many premium international, domestic brands and niche fashion designers. In such scenario, how your fashion label standouttoothers?  

 The Millennials are guiding our path and carving the niche for our Fashion Label. Travelling and Awareness has become so intrinsic to the culture of the Millennial that Their lifestyles and needs and Shopping patterns are what is Guiding our path. Strutt is emerging as an industry leader in the carry on Travel Luggage space. The options, colors, variety, sizes shape we have them all. The bags are compact and Easy to carry and needless to say extremely stylish. The variety offers something for everyone. Each bag is made and designed keeping in mind the size of the airline Cabin Baggage. The most common sizes we are offering are perfect for 3 to 4 days’ travel. There are some standard features across bags which are imminent for essentials and those have now become our highlighting features.

According to you, what are the factors propelling growth in fashion and lifestyle retail market of India?

 It’s the time and age of the Millennial. They have now become the most significant demographic of the population. For the Millennial today quality is king, they seek both quality and value and are more attracted toPvt Labels that deliver both. The Millennial state of mind has changed the way the purchases are made across generations. The sheer size of the Indian youth paves the way for sustained growth in purchasing power.

What is your current distribution in the online and offline space. Do you have retail store or plan to open in near Future? Going forward, what are the plans to scale up the distribution?

We have An online Store www.thestruttstore.com .However When we did decide to go live with our Brand and While the website was under construction we did try Offline retail by sharing a wall of an established store in DLF Mall of India. We did this to understand our customers and their needs better and to get a live feedback on our products. We were in DLF for about 5 months before we launched our website and from there we moved to completely our online store once it was launched. The future for Strutt looks super exciting in both the Online and Offline space.

According to you, what are the major challenges in your retail category? 

We manufacture each and every bag. We do not sell stock items. Our manufacturing methods have evolved to a point where we can handcraft a bag after we have received the order and then dispatch it within 24 hours. While working for brands like Walmart we learnt a lot and achieved great cost advantages. When we decided to go retail we decided we will transfer these Cost advantages to the Customer. Due to this we work on limited margins. Now this is where the challenge arises. All these big companies like Myntra, Amazon and Flipkart work on Stock models. Also their objective is to continuously increase consumer base which is why they offload stocks at discounts of 80 – 90 %. We are too small a fish to match these discount and survive the losses. Another big challenge we face in the online retail space is the Logistics and delivery of the bags. Our delivery partners still haven’t gained complete control over their last mile service. Which is why smaller brands like us suffer huge losses in COD deliveries, when they are not delivered and return back to us even if the customer wanted the purchase.

Is your start-up backed by any VC or PE? Do you have plans to raise funds?

Not as of now. We are Bootstrapping as of now.

 At last, kindly highlight your growth plans?

We Plan to grow online with maximum reach and offline through a unique model which will enable a lot of entrepreneurs and quicker and more efficient deliveries. Considering our growth chart in the last couple of months we are extremely optimistic about the future and the direction we have taken and are looking at achieving a Leading role in the Travel life cycle of the Smart traveller.