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“Pure play tab environment can’t cut the chase of omni-channel” – Pankaj Vermani, CEO, Clovia

By Satarupa Chakraborty | July 25, 2018

VC and seed-funded omni-channel lingerie brand Clovia is just 3 years old. Their understanding of consumption through online channel is translating in their offline footprint specially across smaller towns. Retail4growth speaks to Pankaj Vermani, CEO, Clovia, on choosing store locations and “sensitive” omni-channel strategies, amongst other things.

Your brick-and-mortar expansion doesn’t show much interest in mall and metro locations. Is it a strategic move?

Yes, it’s a strategic move to expand in high footfall areas, which are typically the celebrated high street locations. Our operation as a pure online brand for more than 2 years has given us ample amount of understanding in terms of on product consumption and geographies. Interestingly, more than 50% of our online business is coming from tier II towns, while 2 years back it was just 30%, indicating a huge traction coming from smaller towns. Offline expansion naturally had to follow the indications and here we are, poised to expand across West Bengal, Gujarat and North Eastern region etc. Even for a market like Delhi-NCR, it was our conscious decision to expand across high footfall locations like Sarojini Nagar, Kamla Nagar etc.

Originally started as an online brand, how do you plan to bring omni-channel interfaces to your stores?

See, pure play tab environment, which is often called omni-channel interface, can’t embody the true blue omni-channel interface. What we believe is that offline spaces offer us a privilege to interact directly with our clients and we must utilize it not to give them a mere access to our online environment, but to create an effective and enjoyable in-store environment. Though it is part of our phase-III planning, which is slated to take off by next quarter, we are planning to bring some Augmented Reality tools that will interact with our customers on topics like body reality etc. at the same time, we are a lingerie brand and therefore, we will be extremely vigilant towards the sensitivity.

What’s your Y-O-Y growth in the category which is growing at a CAGR of 18%-22%?

Interestingly, the lingerie segment is growing at a much higher speed than even mainline apparel, which is growing at about 8%. At the same time, top 10 organized lingerie brands in India account to only 7% of the total market, leaving a great opportunity for organized players to participate in this growth story. The interesting league that we are missing in this segment are the semi-organized brands that are leading regionally. The good news for us is those customers are converting towards a brand like ours, making us grow at a CAGR of around 80%.

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