Online retailer Exclusively.in, which sells Indian fashion clothing to customers in the US, has launched a contemporary range of apparel for men and women in India called Sher Singh, which will be available through www.shersingh.com. Cricketer Zaheer Khan is the brand ambassador and part owner of what is claimed to be the world’s first global online clothing brand from India. The company is expecting a turnover of $100 mn from the range in the next two years.
Shersingh.com offers free home delivery anywhere in India for lifestyle products such as tees, trousers, polos, shirts, dresses, skirts, saris, and tunics, priced Rs 499-1,999. According to company officials, the range, which embodies contemporary Indian concepts, is the result of collaboration between top designers from New York and Delhi.
Said Exclusively.in CEO Sunjay Guleria: “We expect online sales of $100 mn from India over the next two years. Market leaders like Flipkart and Myntra are proving that such turnovers from online businesses are possible.”
Exlusively.in began three years ago when US-based fashion model Sonny Caberwal and entrepreneur Sunjay Guleria met each other and asked why there is no global lifestyle brand that represents who the Indians are and what they believe in. The duo moved to Delhi to start their company 18 months ago. “In this period, we have become the world’s largest online retailer of Indian fashion. Now we are turning our attention to building the world’s first lifestyle brand from India to the world,” said company COO Caberwal.
Guleria argued that there is no reason why there cannot be a globally recognized lifestyle brand from India. “The country has immense design capability with a unique creative energy that has already been adopted by some of the top designers of the world. Quality is also not an issue because many global lifestyle brands source their products from India,” he said. “So we assembled a team of top designers from India and abroad and created what could be a unique design concept bringing Indian lifestyle to the world. Our products are manufactured with quality and components at par with top international lifestyle brands, as independently verified by SGS, the world’s leading testing agency.”
Is the online space in India big enough for a lifestyle brand to sell its products exclusively through a website, with no physical stores? According to Guleria, it is because the market economy of the Internet is taking off rapidly in the emerging markets, with India being the leader. “Within the last three years, the Internet penetration in India has more than doubled from 42 mn to 88 mn users. The latest figures show a user base of 100 mn! This is one of the fastest growing Internet populations on the planet.”
To encourage online sales, the company is making it more convenient for users to shop on the Internet compared to a physical retail store by offering free shipping, free returns, and three-day delivery anywhere in India. Said Caberwal: “Since we are an online-only store, we don’t have to support a huge retail infrastructure like other big brands. We are able to pass those cost savings to our customers and sell our products at a much cheaper price.”
Sher Singh’s brand ambassador and co-investor Khan said: “The apparel has a very contemporary lifestyle branding to it that will appeal to all Indians. It is nice relaxed evening wear. Sher Singh has the potential to be the biggest online apparel brand in the world.” Sher Singh’s first collection is called CRICKET that is inspired by India’s World Cup wins in 1983 and earlier this year.
Sher Singh is backed by venture capitalists like Tiger Global Management and Accel Partners as well as angel investors such as Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India), Sushama Reddy (model/actress), and Kishore Lulla (Chairman, Eros Entertainment).
-IndiaRetailing Bureau
