5 Indian online ethnic wear, jewellery brands that saw bumper sales this festive season
Online shopping is the new normal and this Diwali, SMBStory lists five ethnic wear and jewellery brands that have caught customers’ eye.
The COVID-19 pandemic has rewritten the rules of shopping. Gone are the days when people would navigate busy marketplaces to look for the best products in town. Now, customers are hopping on to social media platforms and ecommerce sites to find the best bargains.
This Diwali, SMBStory lists five small and medium ethnic wear and jewellery brands that are winning customers’ hearts.
Rustorange
In 2016, began its journey as a digital platform with new designs. The founders started with a lean inventory, which meant that prospective customers got high-in-demand styles with every visit.
So far, Rustorange claims to have served about 5,00,000 customers. The platform has sold more than one million products since its launch. Shashank Agnihotri, cofounder of the brand says,
“The festive season in 2021 is seeing our best demand so far. Multiple factors like an increasing number of people shopping online due to COVID-19, improvement in current consumer sentiment with COVID-19 being under control, and latent demand due to lockdowns and generally tough last 18 months, have increased our October festive demand from about 1.2 crore last year to 2.5 crore this year.
Shashank also feels that online demand will keep increasing 100 percent year-on-year, as more and more people experience the comfort, ease, and variety offered by online shopping,” he says.
Major sales for Rustorange are driven by their own website, followed by Nykaa Fashion and Myntra.
Shobitam
Founded by sisters-duo Aparna and Ambika Thyagarajan, began in March 2019 as a pilot project in Etsy to fuel the creative instincts of the founder sisters. Since then, Shobitam has built a platform of authentic hand woven products for global customers and is working with weaving clusters across 11 cities in India.
Shobitam received its first order from a customer in France and it has now shipped to over 30 countries and is witnessing an explosive growth rate of 300 percent year-on-year as a startup in its second full year of operation.
This year, amid the festive season, Aparna says the company has witnessed 2.2X growth.
“We have grown 2.2X this season over last year and nearly 8X growth from 2019 to 2021. The rapid growth is attributed to our e-commerce driven digital first approach globally and laser focus on offering customers our best selections.
Rubans
Founded in 2014 by Chinu Kala in a 70 sqft kiosk in Phoenix Mall, Bengaluru, Accessories has grown to become an online-dominant brand. Chinu had launched the company with a Rs 3 lakh investment.
This festive season, Rubans has grown around 150 percent as compared to last year. Chinu attributes this growth to the boost in customer optimism due to the success of vaccination drive in the country.
“People are feeling safer and are planning to meet their loved ones face to face. Rubans in this year has added around 5 lakh happy customers and we are hopeful that this positivity will carry on and the trade will see a huge spurt in demand in this entire festive season,” she says.
The team at Rubans is working hard on ‘Mission Rs 150 crore by 2024’. It is also considering diversifying its offerings into other avenues in the fashion space.
Adwitiya Collection
began its journey in 2013 as founder Aditi Garg’s passion project. For a span of five years, Aditi, a CA aspirant, was juggling between her studies and pursuing a business.
In 2018, she quit her CA to become a full time entrepreneur.
Things started shaping up for Aditi as she says that this festive season her brand has witnessed 400 percent growth compared to last year where she gets around 300-400 orders per day.
“Amid the pandemic, online customers have matured a lot. Even we invested much more this year to give variety and quality at an optimum price range and it reaped good results,” Aditi says.
Adwitiya Collection sells its jewellery on various ecommerce portals like Amazon, Flipkart, Mirraw, and Myntra. According to Aditi, Myntra alone accounts for 90 percent of its sales.
Jaipurikurti.com
Anuj Mundhra started his business of selling ethnic kurtis online with very limited resources in 2012. Anuj’s wife, Vandana Mundra, would design kurtis, which were then dyed, printed, stitched, sampled etc in its manufacturing unit in Kartarpur Industrial Area, Jaipur. The brand got listed on Snapdeal and Jabong and started selling in-house manufactured items on these platforms.
Today, the company manufactures and sells ethnic suits, kurtis, fusion wear, bottomwear and a host of other apparel items. The B2C company even exports to countries such as the UK, the US, Australia, Malaysia, and a few others.
This festive season, Anuj says the brand has sold 91,523 units compared to last year which was 86,000.
“We are proud to be a women ethnic brand operating in the affordable segment of the category. Our aim is to be able to provide modern ethnic wear across the country in every household. Despite the past year's situation, we performed well last year. Gaining momentum from that we are still growing strong this year."
In October 2016, Nandani Creation, which operates , announced its Initial Public Offering (IPO). A total of 14,44,000 equity shares were subscribed for Rs 4,04,32,000. The company is also planning to get listed on the main board of NSE in the coming times.
Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti
