One of the leading fashion, beauty and lifestyle platforms, Myntra, went live with the 18th edition of its biannual event, the End of Reason Sale (EORS) on June 1. This year, the platform is abuzz with even more excitement, showcasing an impressive 20+ lakh fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products from over 6,000 leading international, domestic and D2C brands. The current edition also has over 200 homegrown D2C brands offering 1 lakh trend-first styles.
In this edition of ‘The Pathfinders’ series, we spoke to three thriving new-age D2C brands on Myntra, who aren’t just showcasing stellar collections for the ongoing EORS, but also touched upon Myntra’s role as a key enabler in the scale-up of their brands.
MyGlamm: Revolutionising the beauty industry
When it comes to India’s bustling beauty segment, most beauty enthusiasts are likely to know of MyGlamm. Launched in 2017, the brand is under the umbrella of the Good Glamm Group, which houses The Moms Co, St Botanica, Organic Harvest, Siona and BabyChakra, among others. It is one of the most sought after D2C consumer brands in the country.
Sukhleen Aneja, CEO of Beauty and FMCG Brands, the Good Glamm Group, credits this growth to their zeal to innovate and deep connection with their young customers. As a company that was founded online, she says that the brand understands the young consumer of today very well.
“When MyGlamm launched, nearly 70% of its range had products that were award winning. They were pioneering innovation seen for the first time in India. MyGlamm is ‘my own glamour’; the purpose is embedded in its name. We want to make young girls feel glamorous with products that are innovative, new, and pioneering,” she explained.
The aim has been to democratise glamour, making it accessible to millions of Indians. To that end, MyGlamm is available across 19,000 pin codes nationally. Nearly 60% of their customers are from Tier II and III cities.
Their association with Myntra has only strengthened their goals. MyGlamm started as an online D2C brand, and their decision to be on Myntra enabled them to showcase their wide range of beauty innovations on one of India’s leading platforms that possesses a large base of women consumers who lean on Myntra to fulfill their fashion and beauty needs.
“The relationship with Myntra has been very good. The platform has fashion-forward and loyal consumers who are very experimental. And there can’t be a better fit than this for MyGlamm,” Aneja said. Being on Myntra has helped “tremendously”, with an array of other benefits such as increased visibility, access to premium audiences, express delivery, among others. The company’s makeup range in partnership with Manish Malhotra is well-received on Myntra along with their marquee lipsticks such as Ultimatte and LIT, that are a hit with shoppers.
Aneja is excited about the ongoing EORS-18. Looking back at the previous editions of the shopping carnival, she recalls ~25,000 units getting sold out in less than 10 minutes. She also recalls MyGlamm selling 50,000 units in record time, during another edition of EORS. “I think EORS is a good way for us to be able to get many people to try our brands. Finally at the end of the day, it’s the strength of your product. That is the holy grail that makes you want to come back and repeat a brand,” she said.
Aneja claims that the current EORS edition has MyGlamm products that were launched as recently as three months ago, which are now getting exposed and activated across platforms in India and US. Their range of high-performing lipsticks have always been a hit, but now the brand is aiming to also focus on the face segment, apart from lips, with the introduction of its new ranges, the Skin Awakening Range and the Super Serum Range. “We couldn’t have found a better partner than Myntra to scale these two mega launches,” Aneja added.
Freakins: Denims tailored for Gen Z
Shaan Shah, CMO and Co-founder, Freakins, was in college when he realised that most denim brands in the country were not catering to Gen Z customers. They were neither online nor were they social-media savvy. While his friends were drawing inspiration from pop-culture icons such as the Kardashians and aspiring to dress up like them in baggy/ripped jeans and denims with different washes, none of those styles were easily available in the country. More often than not, high-end brands offered mainly two options – skinny and straight jeans.
While discussing this with his friend and Co-founder Puneet Sehgal, he decided to bridge the gap by launching their new denim apparel brand, Freakins. “We see a lot of opportunity to build a very large uber-trendy fashion brand that caters to the Gen Z audience in India. We started off with denim wear and have brought together different types of fits and washes to the fashion-forward youth of this country,” Sehgal said.
Launched in 2020, Freakins offers “amazing, inclusive fits in denim as well as fashionable styles” that aren’t available elsewhere. “ I think the two things that are really working well for us are unique fits and our strong brand experience. We’ve got 13 different fits – mom jeans, boyfriend jeans, girlfriend jeans, low waist jeans, a lot of rips and distress, different coloured jeans. These work really well. Apart from this, our aesthetics really resonate with our customers. Our influencers, who collaborate with us, speak to Gen Z,” he said.
Sehgal reveals that most of their demand comes from metros and Tier I cities but they have started penetrating Tier II cities as well.
“Myntra was an important association along the way. Freakins launched on the platform in April 2022, and it has enabled phenomenal growth for the brand.” Sehgal adds “the brand aesthetics and persona helped them get higher click rates on the platform and the demand kept growing from strength-to-strength. Freakins was organically trending on the platform, and Myntra’s big ticket events such EORS and BFF built visibility for the brand.
While Freakins started with pure-play denim jeans, they have launched other complimentary categories as well as knits and wovens. “All of that has been launched on Myntra and is gaining traction with shoppers. The platform is so large, it attracts shoppers from every nook and corner of the country. It gives us indiciation on the assortments that could work,” Sehgal added.
As the team does its own product development, design, and manufacturing end-to-end, it keeps testing styles on Myntra in limited quantities that enables them to understand their end-customer better. “As a growing brand, the feedback loop is very critical. We test the waters and incorporate suggestions to improve the brand.” Freakins is also a part of Myntra’s FWD, a one stop destination for GenZ fashion which currently boasts over 65000 brands.
While Freakins is primarily a denim brand, Sehgal promises that customers will see a lot more non-denim assortment. “The core relaxed fits work extremely well for us. Our mom, slouchy jeans, dad jeans, boyfriend jeans work extremely well as well. Denim tops are doing very well, and the trend kicked off in the last six months. That is our top selling style. Alongside this, cargoes are starting to trend too. We also have bralettes, hats, and varsity jackets. We will dive deeper into knits in the second half of the year,” he said.
Sehgal claims that the team drops 75 to 100 new styles every month, and customers will get to experience these fresh designs in the ongoing edition of EORS. While it is gearing up to introduce new styles with great offers during the season.
Fugazee: Men’s fashion with a twist
Friends for a decade, Karnav Dey and Dhruv Singh were running a full-time tech support business when they identified a glaring gap in the fashion industry – a lack of affordable yet stylish streetwear for men. The duo usually found their ideal outfits in high-end stores, which made them shell out extra money and invest a lot of time hunting for affordable streetwear.
Their mutual love for fashion and the desire to create an affordable streetwear brand led the two to launch Fugazee in 2015. “We play a lot with fabric and trim,we mix and match designs and make a unique garment on its own. When we are making an outfit, it will have 3-4 different fabrics involved. We are aware that we are quite out there, yet very premium and street-ready, along with being easy on the pocket,” Singh said.
Their desire to stand out enabled them to be the only brand in India at one point to offer reflective wear at affordable prices. “We even started importing fabrics from Asian countries, just to bring in that extra oomph factor,” Dey added. Today, the team gets most of its orders from Bombay and Delhi, but they are also witnessing traction from Tier II cities and beyond.
Dey and Singh kick started their association with Myntra in 2016, and the platform has been a rock-solid partner for Fugazee through the years. Singh explained that one of their major challenges was customer returns, which were haphazard on other platforms as there were no real policies. The duo noticed that Myntra’s customers were loyal and had strong purchasing intent.
“We know the intention of buying is the highest on Myntra, compared to any other platform in India. When a shopper is browsing on Myntra, he has the highest intention to buy the outfit, and that results in a lot of demand generation. Myntra has been contributing about 30-35% to our total gross merchandise value (GMV),” Dey said.
As with every partner brand on the platform, the Myntra team helps the duo with inventory projections, which helps them plan inventories accordingly. Myntra also sheds light on the new designs and trends in the market to keep them abreast of the happenings in the landscape.
“We take notes from it, and we pick up colours and trends. It’s super-helpful in shaping our lineup for the coming season,” Dey explained, adding that knitted tops are in trend now and doing very well for Fugazee. The team offers 15-20 styles of knitted items. Alongside this, loose-fit cargos are also preferred by customers. Singh points out that their bestsellers change every quarter as they drop news styles quite frequently.
From an EORS standpoint, the duo is excited about their latest collections, which include a lineup of premium T-shirts and a pre-winter offering and this EORS collection is going to be a bonanza for customers.
Fugazee has big plans for the future. “We expect a minimum of 5-7X growth in the next few years. “We would like to become one of the most sought-after menswear labels in the next two years,” Dey said.
