Yepme to set up 1,400 offline outlets in three years

Seven months after venturing into the offline space, online fashion retailer Yepme is planning to set up as many as 1,400 outlets all over the country in the next three years. This is a part of a plan to get physical stores to contribute 75 per cent of its revenue. The size of the stores would range from around 750-1,200 square feet and will be set up through franchisee route. They will also act as warehouses to facilitate deliveries in and around areas.

Gurgaon-based Yepme, which sells fashion under its own brand name, is now focusing on becoming an affordable fashion brand across not just online but also offline retail. The company’s offline expansion would largely focus on Tier II, II cities such as Haldwani and Hapur in Uttar Pradesh and Jawali in Himachal Pradesh.

Yepme chief executive Vivek Gaur said smaller towns have a huge market for fashion retailing. However, there is a lack of availability of good brands at an affordable price range. Yepme is seeking to address that gap. Yepme, offers fast fashion at prices ranging from Rs 299 to Rs 899, wants to replace local brands with Yepme in the smaller markets where there is minimal presence of branded apparel. Yepme, which started out as an online fashion aggregator offering a mix of private labels and branded apparel, today has around 27 stores, mainly franchise outlets, across metro and smaller cities. Yepme has also been testing the foreign markets and set up a subsidiary, Yepme UK, around five months ago. It has started selling its products on UK-based asos.com.