Designed for the new generation of parents, Loopie is India’s premium, design-first baby gear brand that combines safety, comfort, and modern aesthetics. Its range of strollers, car seats, diaper bags and accessories empowers parents on the go with effortless mobility. Founded in 2025, Loopie has quickly built visibility through its appearance on Shark Tank India Season 5 and is now available across multi-brand baby gear stores, e-commerce platforms, and its own website. Most recently, the brand expanded into experiential retail with its flagship store at Broadway, Pune.

Speaking to Retail4Growth, Akriti Gupta, Founder & CEO of Loopie, shares more about the needs of new-age parenting, the brand’s journey in baby gear market, its growth potential and how offline retail experience is crucial to connect with the target audience.

Can you share a little more on the growth of the baby gear market in India?

There's a larger lifestyle shift underway in the country. As people travel more, they're also doing more with their lives as parents. And that's driving a significant increase in demand for baby gear. Along with this, rising disposable incomes, smaller families, and a greater willingness to spend on children mean parents are actively seeking out the best products available.

In baby gear specifically, that spans everything from strollers to the broader range of products we're developing at Loopie. The overall baby care market is growing in India, and hardline products such as baby gear are really driving this growth.

We started last year, and every quarter we have been growing by around 25 per cent. So, the growth has been fairly good and steady. It hasn't been that we have had some bad months and some good months. We have been just continuously growing.

Can you tell us about Loopie’s approach to offline retail experience?

Our approach is largely customer-focused. Loopie products are used by parents who are fairly early in their parenting journey, and that shapes everything about the retail experience we want to create.

Take a stroller, for instance. As a young parent, you'd want to test it across different terrains — rough surfaces, soft surfaces, smooth floors, and more. Your store should make that possible. It's as simple as that, and it's exactly what we've done at our Pune store. A stroller is, for most parents, a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Before committing to it, you should be able to use it and try it in every way possible and our store enables just that.

The second critical element is staff. At its core, our products are designed for newborns and infants, which means they must perform without fail. That responsibility extends to the people representing them. Our staff needs to deeply understand the products, be able to communicate that knowledge clearly, and create an environment that inspires the same confidence our products are built to deliver.

How do you see retail experience shaping Loopie's growth in the years ahead?

Offline is a significant white space and a major opportunity for us. Frankly, the in-store experience for our category is quite poor today, and our store in Pune is a testament to how we're reimagining what offline retail can look like.

We won't rush into scaling too quickly, but over the next two to five years, you'll see us introduce more formats. As our catalogue expands, our stores will be experience-led where they can see and interact with products, and be guided by staff who are genuinely knowledgeable and warm.

Beyond retail, these stores will serve as service centres, community spaces, and venues for events like the baby rave party we hosted in Pune. The vision is to create places where children love to come and parents love to explore. It's a big opportunity, and we'll build it thoughtfully and steadily over time.

Which cities are you most excited about as emerging markets for Loopie?

Pune is a great example, which is one of our top 10 cities by customer base, yet we couldn't find a single multi-brand store we felt was the right fit for Loopie. When that happens, we don't step back but open our own store.

That said, we've been fortunate to find strong retail partners across the country, so the need to go fully direct isn't always there. But wherever the right offline presence doesn't exist, we'll make sure we show up.

Tell us about the response from the store at Broadway, Pune?

The Pune store has been open for about two months now, and the response has been fantastic. We're already on track to break even, covering all costs, including rent and staff, which is a strong early signal.

The store is around 120 sq ft, which is sizeable enough to display our products properly without feeling oversized. It sits within the Broadway store, which houses a great mix of new-age and D2C brands, so when customers walk in, they're already in the mindset of discovering quality products and experiences. This is a natural fit for Loopie.

On the community side, we hosted an event within the first month of launch. It was primarily about building awareness, and the response was overwhelming. We could only accommodate about 20% of the people who wanted to attend, simply due to space constraints.

In parenting, word travels fast. New parents are deeply connected through friend groups, WhatsApp communities, and shared experiences. The moment Pune parents heard about us and got to experience our products firsthand at the event, that awareness spread organically. Since then, we've done no additional marketing for the store and people have been walking in and buying on their own.