How Joker and Witch is Exploring the Untouched Segment of Fashion and Accessories
How Joker and Witch is Exploring the Untouched Segment of Fashion and Accessories

Fashion is and has always been an in-demand industry, with consumers from all around the world calling for new trendy and updated styles at prices that are affordable. If we look at the accessories front, accessories are no longer viewed as add-ons, but products in their own. Fashion accessories come in a variety of product types, the term itself is extremely vast and covers almost any accessory related to fashion. 

In the context of urban India, fashion is no longer related to items of clothing, it has gone from a pair of shirts and trousers to the right match of the tie, socks, shoes, and more. Similarly, for a woman, the bag, the earrings, the stole or the scarf, and the sunglasses hold great significance. 

However, a very large part of the accessory market still remains untapped by the organized sector, being largely catered by the unorganized sector, and hence offers high potential. On a global scale, manufacturers and retailers offer their consumers numerous products such as hats, sunglasses, necklaces, bracelets, watches, jewelry, rings, belts, ties, scarves, headbands, etc. The Indian fashion accessory market has grown manifold over the past few years. 

“The market value of accessories across India in the year 2017 was approximately Rs 280 billion and is estimated to reach Rs 850 billion in 2023. The accessories market, until recently, was part of the unorganized market but with the rapid rate at which fashion trends have evolved, this sector transitioned into an organized one,” as per a report by Statistica.

Today, we have lots of options to choose from when it comes to fashion accessories. But when it comes to affordable pricing and the latest fashion, it gets hard for consumers to select a brand for themselves. A consumer needs a brand that can offer him/ her everything in every term possible such as pricing, latest fashion, quality, assistance, and services are given by the brand, etc. most of the time brands lack these features. There are a few brands in the market that fulfill these terms for their consumers. 

And one of those brands is Joker & Witch. Started in 2015 by the husband-wife duo Satish Singh and Maya Varma at their 2 BHK apartment in Bangalore where they spent late nights packing and processing hundreds of orders by themselves. Satish, a marketing major from MICA Ahmedabad, and Maya, an accessory designer from NIFT, New Delhi were extremely passionate about watches and jewelry.

In terms of watches, there was no one brand that was focusing on the aspirations of the millennials and Gen Z who are extremely aware of global trends and are fashion conscious. That’s where Joker & Witch came in with beautifully crafted affordable watches and right-on-trend unique jewelry with an international appeal.

Satish Singh and Maya Varma, Founders of Joker & Witch said, ”Our USP lies in our design and product proposition. Minimal and chic is what’s at our brand’s epicenter and that exudes right from our product design quotient to the way the website looks, from the way we package to even the way interact with our consumers. Though we are inspired by international trends, celebrity looks, high-street styles, global brands and keep an eye out for fashion forecasts and fads, we also strive to create classic go-to pieces that last beyond seasons and equally focus on comfort and functionality. This approach makes it possible for us to recognize trends early and create wearable pieces, with something for every kind of person.”

Joker and Witch

“Our Unique pre-curated product categories of Watch Bracelet Stacks, Love Triangles, Love Stacks, and curated gift sets are one of a kind propositions that no other brand in the country offers. Over the years we have redefined ‘the art of gifting’ with these unique watch and jewelry combinations which are thoughtfully put together by our in-house stylists, giving us a striking edge over our competitors,” they added.

Retail and Marketing Strategy
Being the backbone of any successful brand retail and marketing strategies plays a vital role in the journey of every brand. In the case of Joker & witch, the husband-wife duo implied their own strategies to market the products and brand.

On the retail and marketing front Maya shared, “Joker & Witch is an online first D2C brand with about 60 percent of sales coming from our own website and the remaining from established marketplace platforms like Myntra, Amazon, Nykaa, Ajio, etc. We believe in 360-degree surround marketing and we stand ground in building a community around our products with compelling content that is accessible at the right place and the right price.” 

“We follow the 3 ‘I’ rule: Instagram, Innovation, and Influencers. We believe in the power of digital marketing and with Instagram at the vanguard of content, especially for the consumer base we target, a lot of our marketing strategies are social media trend-driven. The distinctive appeal of a brand comes with the uniqueness it exudes and the innovation that lies at the core of the products we cater to, “she added. 

“With numerous possibilities available when it comes to styling, we’ve built uncommon, never seen before gifting sets like the watch bracelet stacks, love stacks, love triangles that bring together the best of both worlds: watches and jewelry. Good content drives in a good community and with influencers reigning social media, each of their success independently brings in an exemplary crowd that in turn builds a community within the brand. Keeping these at the core, it’s important to stick to the other traditional methods of marketing that include email marketing, brand collaborations with entities that emanate similar DNA, and ideologies that altogether overlap within the same strong consumer segment. All these strategies put together bridges the gap between the business and its customers which in turn increases the brand’s credibility, presence, and overall reputation,” Satish noted.

Omnichannel Approach
As a brand Joker & Witch strongly believes in the power of omnichannel retail for any brand. Being primarily an online brand, Joker & Witch provides a seamless customer experience whether the customer is shopping on the website from their laptop or their mobile. 

Maya said, “We utilize mediums like Whatsapp for customer support and for providing real-time shipping and delivery updates. We intend to launch our mobile app very soon so that customers shopping on their mobiles have a better experience. We try to use multiple apps and technology to gather data about the customer’s shopping pattern so that we can feed it back into our system to improve our product proposition, conversions, and customer service.” 

“Talking about offline, pre-pandemic we had opened our very first pop-up store in VR Mall, Bangalore, but unfortunately due to the circumstances, we had to close it down in 2020. We also participated in some large-scale flea markets in Bangalore before the pandemic struck. Both these offline experiences were extremely encouraging and helped us connect better with our customers. In the coming years, we aspire to balance out our online and offline presence by opening brand kiosks/ stores and being available in multi-brand outlets, thus bringing our shopping experience to life and allowing our customers to have more meaningful interactions with our products,” Satish added.

Future Plans
Joker & Witch offers lots of categories and products to choose from and they are continuously developing new categories and products to grasp the bigger portion of the market. 

When asked about the new developments the husband-wife duo shared, “We introduce new styles every month and are always looking forward to innovating in terms of our product offerings. As the brand grows, we intend to build it as a watch and accessory brand wherein we’d try to expand it further into new categories like smartwatches, scarves, cufflinks, belts, sunglasses, etc, and also intend to launch a separate premium watch line. We are very keen to bring forth certain other categories which might be launched as independent brands under the same parent brand portfolio thus creating a house of brands of sorts.”

“We definitely have plans to raise funds this year. We’ve grown through the last 6 years from whatever initial capital investment we started the brand with and for us to become a sizeable contributor within,” Maya and Satish concluded.
 

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