Craftsvilla to launch its own label, expand offline

While on one hand fashion portals like Myntra and Jabong are doing away with private labels and posting only top-selling brands on their platform, Craftsvilla is all set to launch its private label and may expand into offline retail, informs Manoj Gupta, founder of Craftsvilla.

Interestingly, the site has 32,000 sellers and 5 million product listings. By the end of 2016, the firm intends to raise between 50-75 million dollars.

To a query about the kind of margins the company earns and does it do so in the fashion and lifestyle industry, Gupta answers, fashion is generally a high-margin category where margins typically hover around 30-40 percent for apparel and footwear, but in ethnic fashion, they are more than 50 percent. He adds by saying that he earns 50-60 percent margins in the ethnic category and between 30-40 percent in western fashion.

Does he plan to expand into offline retail? No, since his company does not have any private-label brands, it was not possible to expand to offline retail. Now that his company was looking at private-label brands, they would accordingly take a call on going offline, Gupta informs adding, they would in any way make between 30-35 percent from the private labels.

Making his point clear on was Craftsvilla tying up with any brand and is it leaning towards local manufacturers or international brands, Gupta says most of his company’s sales come from unbranded items because ethnic is a category where a lot of sale happens because people like products with patterns, designs and colours. The brand-consciousness is not very high on ethnic. Also, there are not many brands in the ethnic category. Most of our sale happens from local brands.

Talking about the kind of return rate he sees and how does he plan to cut costs on returns, Gupta says that the returns of his company are about 5-6 percent of the total sales. He goes on to inform that they do not take any direct cost, it has to be borne by the seller. His company acquired a virtual logistics company Sendd that helps sellers in delivery and pick-up.