You are currently viewing Profitable from day one, EyewearLabs disrupts the $2.2B Sunglass market, with its uniqueness, style, and affordability

Profitable from day one, EyewearLabs disrupts the $2.2B Sunglass market, with its uniqueness, style, and affordability


In 2016, when Mehul Jakharia decided to leave his well-secured job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in the USA, he envisioned creating a space for smart streetwear sunglasses. Reminiscing the thoughts, he says “ Our vision is to create the unorganized Sunglass market into an organized brand. “

“Sunglasses usually top the list of items in a travel kit. But outside of metro cities, especially in the Tier II and Tier III areas, getting sunglasses is an expensive affair. Very few companies make good-quality eyewear in India, and a surge is always witnessed in the demand. Due to this demand-supply mismatch, prices are abnormally high,” says Mehul.

This thought was enough to trigger the initiation of EyewearLabs, a Mumbai-based eyewear brand that aims to make waves in the eyewear industry with its stylish yet high-quality and affordable range of sunglasses.

The differentiator

The journey of making a difference or carving a niche is not easy. Mehul and his team took this as a challenge when they started from their 100 sq ft office, spending the next 8 months understanding the sunglass market, the customer base, their choices, and figuring out the problems in the industry. But, the main focus was on the designs, they swear by their design process – all their designs are tried and tested in-house before they make it onto the website.

“Gradually we noticed the positive feedback for our styles, designs, and quality, and on a monthly basis we started rolling out new designs,” adds Mehul.

Today, the 100 sqft area had been replaced with a 5000 Sq ft warehouse with an office.

But, every success story had its fair share of struggles, and EyewearLabs was no exception. Here, Mehul adds “Working capital became an issue as our growth strategy was between 2x to 10x year on year. However, we closely monitored all expenses to reduce operational cost and focused on maintaining our growth.”

As a direct-to-consumer brand, EyewearLabs cuts down massively on distribution costs. While its competitors sell sunglasses starting at Rs 2,500, they bridge the gap between low-quality sunglasses at Rs 700 or very high-priced sunglasses priced at Rs 2,500.

“We ensure sunglasses with a value for money, focusing mostly on lenses and the frame designs. So all of our sunglasses are polarized with 100% UV protection to reduce glare, thereby protecting the eyes from harmful ultraviolet rays. That’s one norm that we follow,” adds Mehul.

But even after this, and in this new competitive era of playing it well, how do EyewearLabs ensure that they are at par with the other players of the ecosystem, regarding quality and cost-effectiveness?

“Our sunglasses have a young and vibrant look, where lenses are imposed with cool mirrors, and colored lenses like blue, green, purple, and so on. Thus, the wearer not only looks cool but it also gives them a lot of confidence. Even Large Brands whose sunglasses are worth: Rs.3k+ may or may not have polarized lenses. Also, the Metal frame we use is aluminuim-magnesium , so it’s lightweight and more durable,” explains Mehul.

“EyewearLabs is named so because we wanted to innovate and shake up the sunglass market. That’s engraved in our company DNA, and the labs are places where you innovate the most. So, that’s how the name EyewearLabs was born,” he also adds.

Growth and revenue

As a 100 percent bootstrapped company, they started off with 15 lakhs as an initial investment. Talking of the recent scenario, EyewearLabs has already acquired a premier position of being one of the market leaders in the $2.2 billion sunwear industry in India within just four years of its launch and aims a GMV (gross merchandise value) of 100cr in the current year.

But, what does the sales proposition look like? Are there any brick-and-mortar stores? To this Mehul answered with confidence that “We sell through our website Eyewearlabs, However, we are in talks to be omnichannel very soon.”

With monthly revenues of more than a million dollar, this young startup is looking at a 3X Y-o-Y growth, thanks to its efficient operational strategy of closely monitoring all the expenses to reduce operational costs and maintaining a self-financing growth rate.

With an extremely lean team of 15 members, including designers – efficient operations, great designs, and a loyal set of customers, this brand is well on its way to becoming a unicorn.

Following this success, Mehul adds, “We wanted to bank on products which were not available in the Indian market, so we were very diligent on designs and didn’t take any huge inventory risks. Also, we didn’t spend money on the black hole called branding. We let our products do the talking and only focused on performance. We are planning to add 100 kiosks across Tier I and II cities in the next two years, and strive to clock Rs 500 crore revenue.

However, here, we can’t avoid their policy of gaining customer loyalty, or as they would like to call it, i.e., the ‘Damn It!’ policy where users get a 50% discount on their next purchase if they break or damage their sunglasses within eight months of their purchase, and repurchase any style they like.

What’s next?

Innovation is the key word behind the success of any brand. “Using the latest technology in lenses, we intend to launch performance sunglasses in Military, Cricket, Motorcyclist, and other sports categories and additionally grow our distribution channels,” Mehul exclaims.

Now, here comes the best part. Describing how celebrities love donning their sunglasses, Mehul says, “Rannvijay Singha loved our sunglasses so much that they launched a Rannvijay X EL exclusive collection together. The collection is unique, and is designed by the style icon himself.”




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