For women’s fashion brand Berrylush, its products are its biggest brand ambassadors
The brand’s customers are always delighted by the quality and style quotient of its products. No wonder then that they do rigorous word-of-mouth publicity for Berrylush—this to date has been the most successful marketing campaign for the brand.
Getting the trend on-point
Husband-wife duo Alok Paul and Anusha Chandrashekar founded Berrylush in 2017. They met at IIM Raipur and did a lot of projects together. “We also participated in many business plan competitions. This was the time when we decided to do something of our own. But first, we wanted to get some exposure in the industry,” shares Alok Paul, Co-founder and COO, Berrylush. After completing his MBA, Alok joined Artoo, a start-up which is into digitalisation of micro and small business lending, while Anusha joined Deloitte as a consultant. “During this period, we wanted to start a business on our own. In 2016, we began looking at e-commerce as an industry where a lot of development was happening,” adds Alok. He started working in the e-commerce industry as a consultant providing services to D2C brands in India and the US. “Anusha was always very passionate about the fashion industry and wanted to create a fashion brand. We were looking for white spaces in the fashion industry and found out that high-quality and chic and stylish western wear apparel for women at an affordable price range was lacking in the Indian e-commerce space. This is when Berrylush was born,” conveys Alok.
The duo did a lot of research before launching the products. “We have been trying to delight our customers through product offerings, quality and trends from the very first day. We knew that our products themselves must be differentiated from the existing offerings in the market, so a lot of our focus went to that,” says Alok. To date, all Berrylush products are approved by Anusha. As a result, Berrylush can bring a consistent design across all its categories and sub-brands, and each of its products represents the brand.
Growing with power
Berrylush launches roughly 150 styles every month. “Whenever we launch a product, we closely look at the response of customers and within a few days, plan replenishment of these products. We can maintain top ranks across all the categories we are available in by doing so. Our biggest strength is our data analytics and we use this for inventory building and even new product launches,” says Anusha Chandrashekar, Co-founder and CEO, Berrylush.
Every start-up will face some challenges while trying to run the business, and for Berrylush, it has been no different. “As we started the brand with limited resources, our quantities were very small, so good and established manufacturers were not motivated to work with us. Some smaller manufacturers were ready to work with us but they could not deliver the products on time and consistency in product quality was lacking,” explains Anusha. So, the duo started their in-house manufacturing unit with four machines and five employees in July 2018. “We did not have an apparel or textile industry background, so we had to learn everything on the job. We set our own processes and systems in place to create the highest quality products for our customers,” adds Anusha. The first month’s production was 900 units. Today, Berrylush is producing approximately two lakh units per month.
Taking the big leap
“We are actively looking for funding and as we have been a profitable organisation since inception, we are aiming for an IPO [initial public offering] in three-five years. Currently, we have three stores—one in Noida Extension, one in Noida and one recently opened in Surat. Six stores are in the fit-out stages and within two months all of them will be operational,” Anusha had shared in November 2022. The duo was aiming for 30 stores in a period of 18 months. They were also trying for omnichannel expansion with an equal focus on online and offline expansion. “We have already started with our offline expansion and expect a revenue share of 30% in the next two years. We are also focusing a lot on our own website and trying to achieve 20% of our revenue through that which currently stands at 10%,” concludes Anusha.
Today, Berrylush has over 20 lakh customers and a turnover of Rs 61.89 crore (FY23).
This article first appeared in IMAGES Group’s D2C India Yearbook 2022 edition
