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Zingbi To Unveil Stores in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Dubai By 2018

By Swaminathan Balasubramanian | March 14, 2018

Zingbi, an online fashion discovery platform for designers came up with their first retail store in Chennai. The store, a month-old with 7000 Sq ft area houses products of designers. In an exclusive chat with Retail4growth, K Mohan Ram, the Managing Director of the company discusses the reason for venturing into the retail space and plans top open 28 stores across the globe by the year 2020.

How are you different from any other retailer?

We are not like any retailer who buys in bulk and sell to customers. We are strictly a company selling items for women-only, procured only from designers directly.  Every product we have in our outlet is unique by itself. You cannot find two similar items with us. Which means, if two sisters shop, and both want same type of dress, they have to wait as we have to get back to the designer to make the second one. We started Zingbi to address the pain-point of the designer and also to recognition & provide visibility for designers. Zingbi will be a one-stop solution for all the women fashion requirement.

What made you venture into retail?

In today’s scenario, no seller can ignore the retail space. Especially, in fashion industry, experience matters most. Coming back to our entry in the retail space, again it is to address the pain-point of the designers. Many of our designers were constantly asking us to give them a physical multi-designer showroom. The reason, they are not getting enough opportunities to showcase their products other than exhibitions or special sales. Also, women who love to buy designer wear will always want to visit a store, experience the ambience and see themselves on how they look in that apparel, post in social media or send it to their friends for feedback and then decide. That way, online may not be the right channel. 

What level of importance is given for ambience?

The top three priorities are ambience, apparel and service. Ambience tops amongst our priorities.  Many of our customers make shopping in our store as a pre-planned event. Their day start with planning for a trip to our store, pick-up friends, visit the store, chit-chat, try different varieties and end the day in a coffee shop. For such customers, ambience should be given top-most priority. We have our lights fitted in a way that the dress looks good in every angle. If I am not wrong, one cannot find another trial-room like ours in terms of size and ambience in India. We give 360 degree look and our mirrors are fit in a way it gives best look and feel for our customers. In our trial room, we have three-layer lighting policy- neutral (which shows the person good), yellow (which shows the apparel good) and white (which reflects exactly how one looks in sun-light). We also take extreme care in furniture and fixtures. In any retail outlet, you cannot find seats for those who are accompanying the shopper. Even for them, we have sophisticated cushion sofa to make them feel good.

What are your expansion plans?

We are aiming at 28 stores across the globe by the year 2020. Which will be 20 in India and eight outside India. Next financial year, we are aiming at expanding in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Dubai. We will be having one store per city. Outside India, we are aiming at the Middle-East market with one store in Dubai. We are also open for franchise with FoCo (Franchise owned company operated) model in these locations. Our store is of two-thousand sqft which will have fantastic ambience and lighting.


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