Fashion portal Bewakoof to enter brick-and-mortar retail space

By raising a funds from a new set of investors, five-year-old fashion and lifestyle portal Bewakoof.com is making another attempt to enter the brick and mortar retail space. Backed by Snapdeal, this would be the portal’s second stint at trying to enter the offline retail segment, having earlier done a pilot through distributors in 2014. Before venturing into other cities, it will set up a couple of flagship stores in Mumbai to start with.

Prabhkiran Singh, Co-founder, Bewakoof points out about two years ago, the company did a pilot with about 150 to 200 boutique outlets but after facing payment issues, the operations were shelved. Then it was decided to focus on the online segment. But now since the company’s online business is doing well, the company wants to slowly get back to giving our consumers the brand experience through flagship stores which would measure between 2,000 to 3,000 square feet.

Having built adequate brand equity for its private label under Bewakoof, the Mumbai-based start-up now wants to sell its brand across market places of all the big players like Amazon and Flipkart. The last time, Bewakoof sourced funds, was almost two years ago with investments from Snapdeal, the founders. Having raised Rs 4 crore in equity from angel investors such as Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal of Snapdeal along with Nikhil Vora, founder of Sixth Sense Ventures, Bewakoof has been steadily increasing its portfolio from apparel to phone and mobile covers. It now intends to tap into the kids wear segment under the Bewakoof brand.