Popular fashion and ecommerce brand Bewakoof successfully raised Rs 30 crore in funding in March 2021, and is eyeing another $30 million to $40 million (approx. Rs 222-296 crore) by the end of FY21. The current revenue run-rate for the brand is Rs 300 crore, and the target is to reach Rs 2000 crore in the next four years.
In a recent episode of YourStory’s Daily Dispatch, Prabhkiran Singh, Co-founder & CEO, Bewakoof, shares that the funds raised would go towards category expansion, branding, technology, and institution building. Till date, Bewakoof has acquired three million users and targets to reach two crore transacting users in the next four years.
“We want to get great talent on board and start thinking more long-term,” adds Prabhkiran.
Bewakoof founder & CEO Prabkiran Singh
Owing to the pandemic, most of the businesses shifted to an online market and the fashion segment suffered a setback as people did not step out of their houses. But despite this slowdown, Bewakoof grew in the past year, says Prabhkiran.
He credits this growth to key initiatives and a great understanding of the market and demand. For instance, the company doubled down on making loungewear during this period, and were also the first to release printed masks. Additionally, the brand also launched ethnic wear during the festive season, and a Pride collection to commemorate Pride Month.
“Bewakoof has always been contemporary. So, anything new that happens, whatever is the pulse of the youth, whatever the youth is excited about, we always have a collection around it,” says Prabhkiran.
According to him, diversification of categories is a priority at Bewakoof. The growth potential of the brand lies in expanding to more categories, and he has plans on adding new categories like innerwear, active wear, personal care, etc. That does not mean the company is necessarily looking at manufacturing everything in-house, outsourcing is an option as well, says the founder.
An important area of focus for Bewakoof has been the expansion of its loyalty programme Tribe, which currently forms 25 percent of total sales, informs Prabhkiran.
Branding is also going to be an essential area of focus for the company. Currently, in a departure from the norm, Bewakoof conducts more than 90 percent of its business on its own platform rather than on an aggregator platform. The brand, which recently on boarded Rajkumar Rao for endorsements, will be coming out with a TV campaign soon.
“We are now focusing on branding, brand awareness and distribution in other marketplaces so that product discovery happens,” says Prabhkiran.
In terms of technology, Prabhkiran says the brand is engineering a lot of use cases for people to keep coming back to the platform such as audience votes and B’Shots, which is a recently launched feature that brings entertainment, content and commerce together. “The idea is that, even if our users do not come to the platform to buy anything, they should visit just to have a good time,” says Prabhkiran.
“Bewakoof’s purpose is adding light-heartedness to life,” he adds.
On retail stores, the founder shares that the company does not plan to go offline for the next couple of years as there is a lot of room for growth on the existing platform itself.
