We are experiencing over 100% Month on Month: Shweta Sharma

Kindly shed light on the journey of your brand. Also present your views on the growth of online fashion? 

It all started in early 2016, when I decided to revamp my work wardrobe    and that led to a shopping trip with my sister, Prachi. Prachi and I bond over fashion and a great cup of coffee; we spent the entire day in malls and high street shops looking for work clothing of our choice, but returned empty handed and disappointed. Back home, it had to be discussed, over one such cup of coffee, why work clothing options for women in India were one dimensional and why was it difficult to find versatile yet sophisticated work pieces. Over the next few months, we researched about the market and discussed it with our friends, colleagues and everyone else we met, realizing that we are not the only ones facing this dilemma. A closer look at the data showed that women’s apparel is one of the fastest growing segments in Indian apparel market.

Per BCG-Facebook study, online fashion market in India is poised to reach $14B by 2020, with women shopper share increasing from 39% today to 48% by 2020. Women are not only shopping, but working with an independent approach to their lives. The modern women’s western wear is set to increase its share to 18% of the total online fashion market from about 14% today.

Work clothing across the world was moving to comfortable clothing that flaunts one’s personality and femininity, while the working women of India were faced with lack of variety in work clothes, their only choice, the plain boring shirts that hide their personality and subdue their femininity. The gap was clear. There was a need to approach the modern working woman and provide her with the possibilities that are available around the world. The Indian woman deserved to break the norm of the Indian working structure and make her workwear more about her individuality and display her femininity as she wished. 

We decided to combine Prachi’s deep expertise in fashion and my experience in ecommerce and business to create a home grown premium brand for working women. With the mission of providing the Indian working women with a versatile, comfy, and sharp yet feminine wardrobe, we decided to use premium quality fabrics that they could carry from the meeting room to their countless social engagements and daily life chores, and thus, Ombré Lane began its fashion journey.

Online fashion is already very crowded. In such scenario what would be your strategies to settle your niche in this channel? What is your USP?

Ombré Lane is a versatile fashion brand founded to cater to the fashion needs of modern working women in India. We aim to provide a beautiful and fashion forward work wardrobe to the diligent working women and the talented lady bosses. Our garments are tailored with handpicked durable and soft feel premium fabrics, sourced directly from the top manufacturers and distributors across the country that supply to luxury brands and designers. We use machine washable and durable fabrics, keeping in mind the busy lifestyle of today’s woman.

We are a content focused brand, and work on helping our customers to find them the best designs and fit based on their personality, lifestyle and body shape via blogs, social media, style surveys and direct interactions. We are working continuously to incorporate our customer’s feedback in our designs, fit and content – basically in everything we do. For example, we received a lot of queries from customers on finding the best designs, colours and fit for their body types and we immediately shared the relevant content on our website and social media channels.Today’s woman wants to effortlessly move from work to social engagements or casual getaways. Hence, we have provided the content that can help her on how to style a shirt or a dress for various occasions in her life. 

Are you also present offline or plan to?

At this point, we are an online only brand, however, we do plan to have an offline presence in due time.

Have you raised any sort of funds so far? If yes, kindly product the details. 

We are currently self-funded. 

How many pin codes the brand is reaching so far? Also shed light on daily order generation? 

We are currently delivering to about 10,000 pin codes in the country. 

At last, kindly mention your growth plans?

Going forward, we plan to establish our brand as a go-to destination for modern Indian women, wanting to buy premium work clothing. We plan to scale significantly over the next one-year while staying focused on building our brand.

We are experiencing over 100% Month on Month growth and we want to maintain the same momentum going forward.