We have 70% repeat customers: PostFold

Online fashion is the most talked about topic in today’s retail space. Experiments, Innovations and out of the box thinking to woo the customers is getting intense these days. Such trends have no doubt increased the competition as consumers today have a lot in their bucket.
Many big small ventures have come up to claim their retail pie and out of which some of them have created a buzz with their phenomenal success story. Apart from discounts and deals, these startups with their unique models and extensive array of product line have managed to score humongous growth.
Speaking about the same with Retailer Media, Ashish Gurnani and Aashray Tathai, Co-Founders, PostFold spoke about this explosive drift in online apparel segment. They also spoke about their model and future plans to stay ahead in the competition.

What factors made you come up with this portal?
When we moved back to India from the US, we realized there was a major gap in the market for quality apparel at an affordable price. Online marketplaces led us to low quality and the big brands led us to a very high price.
After we dug deeper we uncovered, big brands sell their products at 7-10 times the price it costs them to make, which seems ridiculous. Consumers are too smart to pay these markups. This thought lead us to start finding market efficiencies and figure out how can we save costs in the production cycle, We are trying to be vertically integrated at every stage we can be. This way the costs are not transferred to our customers.
Furthermore, in addition to the fact that we couldn’t find the clothes that worked for us after we stopped working, statistics such as by 2020, India is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64 per cent of its population in the working age group and online fashion retail is set to touch $35 billion played a big role in us targeting this particular segment.
Also, having worked with Amazon and Aashrays, experience in working in manufacturing and distribution at William Sanoma Inc. We realized we were the right team to challenge the system.

Why the name “PostFold”?
The reason why we chose the name PostFold is: the last fold when you dress up, whether it’s when you fold your shirt sleeve or the fold of the of your chino, it is the last action or statement you make after getting ready. PostFold aims to help tell the story afterwards.

How has been the response so far?
Response has been great so far. We have had great reviews about the product, packaging and fit. 70% of the customers who bought from us have come back for another purchase. We are extremely confident of our repeat customer purchases as we scale our marketing.
We are currently in the process of improving our website and incorporating all the feedback we have received to make the customer experience even better. We have spent almost no money on marketing yet!

How do you plan to position the brand?
We want to position the brand as a one stop shop for young professionals to buy anything they need to look their best wheather its at work, after work, on the weekends or even when they are travelling.
India is known all over the world as a manufacturer, PostFold is our quest to make it a thought leader of everyday fashion.

What set of marketing strategies are you following?
We have divided our marketing strategies in mainly 3 buckets:
i) Digital marketing- We are going to be extremely active digitally to push our message and story across. This will include social media, SEO, SEM marketing efforts.  We are also going be extremely active on our content marketing efforts; this will include regular blog posts on topics targeted to our audience such as cultural change of dressing up at work, meeting etiquettes, things to do after work, styling types etc.

ii) Word of mouth- We believe our most loyal customers are going to come from efforts we don’t pay for and have our product speak for itself. To fuel this thought, we are in the process of deploying referral initiatives that will provide incentives to anyone that shares our page or helps us spread the Postfold message. We are extremely confident about our repeat customer rate.

iii) Events(pop up shops) and Sponsorships- This strategy is to increase our physical presence and allow consumers to touch and feel post fold products before they buy it.

What has been the design element while launching Desk to Dinner line?
We have kept our design minimal while incorporating some minor details such as concealed plackets, embellishments, button down collars etc. to add an edge while creating the desk to dinner line. This allows the customer to embrace his own individuality by styling it however he/she wants to. We have also used different textures of fabric with season colors to go with our minimal story.

What kind of revenue do you expect from the range?
Our first season range we are expecting our revenue to approx. 20 lakhs as we have limited styles and quantities. We have plans to add more styles, products and increase our marketing and distribution efforts. The goal is to reach 50 cr YoY revenue by the end of 5 years.

What edge do you provide over your competitors?
Honestly Priced- Customers can be sure that when they buy anything from PostFold they are only buying the highest quality product that is possible at the given price.

Transparency- We are extremely transparent both internally and externally in our organization. We invite any customer to come to our office in Gurgaon and we’d be happy to take them around our office, factory.

Fair trade practice- All of the factories we work with follow fair trade practices and we visit them regularly to make sure all the labor is treated ethically.

Are you planning any offline store in near future, or it will be restricted to online only?
Yes, we are planning to open an offline store in the future because we believe that it is extremely important to the customer to have the opportunity to touch and feel the product. That being said, it will not be a standalone offline store but an extension to our online store.