The online lingerie specialist Zivame, is all set to make profits by the first quarter of the fiscal year 2018-19. The online retailer plans on achieving its profitability goals through a mix of both online and offline retail. In fact, it plans to set up a minimum of three dozen stores all across India. In two years, it plans on opening about 100 offline stores and fitting centres in the country.
The company’s losses went up by 84% to Rs. 54 crore, in the fiscal year 2015-16 according to the Registrar of Companies. Its revenue was Rs.62 crore on the other hand. Zivame had an inventory of Rs.40 core. It liquidated most of it and decided to concentrate on retailing only.
Shaleen Sinha, the chief operating officer at Zivame said that the current strategy is to sell the company’s brands through its online outlet and brick and mortar stores. Sinha took over day-to-day operations from Richa Kar, the founder and chief-executive of the ecommerce company, just this month in an investor-led reshuffle.
Besides its offline expansions, Zivame also plans on adding new categories to sell under.
Sinha mentioned, “We want to be a women’s wear brand and will launch new categories like active wear and others over the coming months. We will be breaking even by June 2018.”
Last year Zivame decided to convert from an online marketplace to an online brand. This is expected to bring down its expenses by 60-70% in the course of 18 months.
Sinha added, “Our cost of customer acquisition will come down due to multiple channels and we will also revive marketing through TV commercials over the next month.”
Marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon are both nurturing private labels in clothing, electronics and small appliance categories. Private labels are capable of bringing in higher business for etailers as they control the supply chain. To know how private labels are affecting your online retail click here.
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