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Tailor boutiques are a common sight in Indian neighbourhoods and take care of the tailoring and stitching needs—whether it’s the alteration of clothes or customising apparel. However, most tailoring and boutique services are unorganised and entirely manually managed.

With retail fashion now having a firm digital footing thanks to ecommerce and Instagram shopping, there is also a rising interest in custom-made apparel driven by the need to stand out and popularised through designer collaborations and social media influence.

However, not everyone can afford such customised clothing.

Friends and relatives Soumya Mohanty, Krishna Mohan Chebrolu, Birendra Sahoo, and Neha Nagendra realised the tailoring and boutique industry had yet to adopt technology or digital solutions to manage the business.

“In the current scenario, the entire stitching service is still managed through manual processes, and the overall ecosystem is completely unorganised. This leads to poor customer service,” CEO and CTO Mohanty tells YourStory.

They founded Dachier in 2021 to enable consumers to avail customised apparel digitally at affordable prices and give a platform to skilful tailors to reach the right customers.

The inception

Like most startups, the idea germinated through brainstorming.

“One weekend afternoon, we were discussing the impact of digital platforms available across all industries, from buying a milk packet to booking a cab,” he says. The customised apparel sector needed such a digital platform for all stakeholders.

The Bengaluru-based startup offers a marketplace for boutiques, tailors, and fashion designers, and provides services including personalised styling, alteration and repair services, and tailor-at-home and measurement.

“Our intent is to transform these tasks, provide tools that help manage day-to-day operations, communicate with their customers better, help in the decision-making process, and reach more customers,” Mohanty asserts.

The founders initially invested Rs 20 lakh from personal savings to bootstrap the startup.

Technological transformation

Dachier is a B2B2C startup with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform—’STITCHAT’—for vendors and consumers. It offers order management, broadcasting, inventory management, and employee management, among other services.

“All stakeholders (dressmakers, manufacturing units, fabric units, fashion accessory units, institutions, etc) are connected through this platform, which will serve as a one-stop shop for them to easily sell their services within this ecosystem. With the help of smart digital tools, we hope to disrupt the market for custom clothing and improve the ecosystem,” Mohanty adds.

Some other services include waste management, social media management, and fashion designers as a service (FDaaS) while also offering tips on the latest fashion and fabrics trends. The company plans to launch Business Intelligence and Data Analytics services soon.

The digital offerings are targeted towards boutiques and tailors to improve their customer service. “The fashion tech digital platform takes over the mundane tasks of business operations, and helps boutiques and tailors to offer customer delight and grow their businesses,” he explains.

Currently, the startup has onboarded over 500 merchants on its platform—from small alteration shops to boutiques. It plans to onboard 10,000 merchants by the end of 2024.

Business model

Though Dachier’s services are currently free, it aims to shift to a freemium model by next quarter. While the founders did not disclose the revenue, some of its income generation streams will include subscriptions, listing fees (general and premium), and B2B sales commissions—which vary from 10-30% depending upon the demand—and most of the sales comes from the STITCHAT app.

Dachier’s STITCHAT app caters to stakeholders, including boutiques, tailors, fashion designers, institutions, and manufacturers from the fashion industry. It has more than 700 downloads with a 5-star rating on the Google Play Store, and about 10% of its users are active daily. The iOS app will be launched in the second quarter of this year.

“The app will remain free for basic services that help in organising the day-to-day operation. However, the premium services will be chargeable,” Mohanty clarifies.

Its upcoming waste management and catalogue premium management premium services will use data analytics to give merchandise insights into businesses.

“Our internal team onboards different stakeholders on our SaaS platform and provides them a common platform,” he explains.

The company is developing an app for customers that will be launched soon.

The startup aims to onboard more than 25,000 partners in the next three years and expand its user base by 25 lakh by partnering with apparel brands and manufacturing units (dealing with fabrics and other fashion accessories).

Currently, Dachier is operational in Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar. It plans to expand its footprints to Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad by the end of this year.

The startup competes with players such as Cloud Tailor, Fashinza, Just Dial, Sulekha, OLX, and Binks. “Unlike other players, we offer a range of services for merchants and customers according to their needs. Our aim is to provide end-to-end solutions to users,” Mohanty cites.

Other than the founders and shareholders, the startup currently has four employees.

The way ahead

According to Fact MR, the global tailoring and alteration services market was valued at $9.4 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $14.9 billion by the end of 2032 at a CAGR of 4.7%.

Dachier raised Rs 45 lakh from angel investors in February this year. The startup plans to raise more capital for business expansion, product development, and marketing.

It also plans to expand into the retail clothing business and simplify the supply chain with advanced digital tools for branding and targeting schools, colleges, academies, and other institutions.

The startup is looking to launch new verticals including Fashion Designing Academy, e-learning solution, and its own fashion label in the coming years.