How D2C Brand Tiggle is Disrupting the Hot Chocolate Space
How D2C Brand Tiggle is Disrupting the Hot Chocolate Space

In India, the market for tea and coffee is already saturated. Gazillion companies have started in the last decade to cater to all types of tea and coffee lovers in the country. When consumers visit modern trade outlets, the only hot beverages they could find on their shelves were tea or coffee, and in the cold beverage section, they would see a variety of products like juices, sodas, cold coffees, etc. But when it comes to hot chocolate, there was no brand on a large scale. There was a clear gap in the market and hot chocolate lovers are not catered to. After feeling the need for innovation in the hot beverages section, Tiggle was started in 2021.

“Our aim has always been to make Tiggle a synonym for hot chocolate. In one year of operation, we have been able to scale to over 14,000 customers and deliver over 2,00,000 cups of hot chocolate to more than 20,000 pin codes,” Anuva Kakkar, Founder of Tiggle said.

Why’s the Focus on D2C Market?

Tiggle was started with the idea to sell freshly prepared hot chocolate to cafes and kiosks. To sell hot chocolate online at scale didn’t even seem like a feasible business plan for the brand. But the pandemic forced it to take the online route, build a community and grow the brand.

“Going online gave us the opportunity to target PAN India customers. This is something we couldn’t have imagined if it wasn’t for D2C e-commerce. The potential of targeted marketing and the opportunity scale is propelling a lot of brands to go this route as well,” Kakkar stated.

Tiggle

Payment and shipping tools by Razorpay, Shiprocket, etc have made the entry barrier super low and have enabled people with no prior knowledge to build a fully functional D2C brand in a matter of days. The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns also made consumers more open to the idea of buying online.

Product Offerings

Initially, the brand launched two varieties of hot chocolate — Dark and Light. In 2022, it introduced jaggery hot chocolate mix which helped the brand reach out to a whole new customer segment.

“Hot chocolate has always been a premium drink and through Tiggle we want to change that. We would want to further expand the range of hot chocolate mixes and also bring in products that help people to make the best hot chocolate. Our mission is to get more and more people to try hot chocolate,” she asserted.

Tiggle is planning to launch bigger packs of its products this month followed by subscription plans.

Technology Plays a Vital Role

The brand’s focus on customer retention has increased from last quarter. Initially, for 10 months, it didn’t put as much focus on retention and only aimed at acquisition. All repeat customers Tiggle received initially were organic.

Tiggle

Now, as the brand is growing and has automated the acquisition process to a limit, it has tried experimenting with a few ideas for retention. Its primary focus is email marketing via which it sends reorder reminders to the customer after their one packet is over (it takes 15 days on average to complete one pack). These emails also make the reorder process easier, customer information is already saved, they just have to make a click and make their payment.

Future Plans

Apart from the website, Amazon is Tiggle’s next best bet. The brand aims to be available on fast delivery platforms like Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart. It’s exploring more city-oriented online distribution channels.

“In 2022, our focus is on scaling up. 2021 was the first year of operation, and it gave us a great sense of the industry, go-to-market strategies, and what people like. We want to leverage those learnings in the next quarters,” Kakkar concluded.

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