Zivame hopes to cross 15 million dollars by March 2016

Online lingerie e-tailer Zivame is confident of crossing 15 million dollars (Rs 101.83 crores) in revenues by March 2016. Zivame has successfully tapped into India’s 3 billion dollars (( Rs 20,000 crores) lingerie market. Last year, Zivame launched a fitting lounge in Bengaluru. It assists women in understanding their size as well as guide online orders.

Zivame was started in 2011 with the idea of offering women privacy and dignity in shopping their innerwear. The site stocks 5,000 styles, 50 brands and 100 sizes. The site gets 2.5 million unique visitors a month and sells two bras every minute. It ships 200,000 items very month. Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional invested in Zivame from its USD35 billion fund, thus making the site the first e-commerce investment in India.

Richa Kar, an engineering and management graduate started the online lingerie company with 600,000 dollars (Rs 4.07crores) seed money. It came from her own as well as that of her then boyfriend and now husband’s savings. In order to fill the gap in choices, she started developing in-house brands and handled the design, manufacture and supply. The brands developed by her include Pen.ny (for older women), Cou Cou (for younger women) and Rosaline (premium cotton product). The bras are made in Eastern Europe, Bangladesh, China, Latin America and India. These bras now contribute two thirds of the revenue. Zivame has spawned similar sites selling lingerie such as PrettySecrets and Secret Angel. The word ‘ziva’ means radiant in Hebrew.