Shyam S Prasad, chief executive officer of Brand Studio Lifestyle provides valuable insights into the story of the house of brands, its priorities, success strategies and future objectives
Bengaluru: Shyam S Prasad founded Brand Studio Lifestyle with a team of six entrepreneurs as a house of brands in 2015, at a time when e-commerce was still nascent in the country. Currently, it operates with a workforce of over 700 members and boasts a lineup of six fashion brands, collectively generating over 1,500 styles each month.
In an exclusive interaction with IndiaRetailing, Prasad, founder and chief executive officer of Brand Studio Lifestyle provides valuable insights into the story of the house of brands, its priorities, success strategies and more.
Edited excerpts…
What is the story behind Brand Studio Lifestyle?
We noticed that fashion was inaccessible in terms of availability and affordability. It often didn’t align with what customers were looking for due to the long 12-18-month concept-to-consumer cycle followed by most legacy brands.
Through e-commerce, we could reach all of India, including the smallest towns and cities. Leveraging our experience in fashion, we established a fast supply chain ecosystem, allowing us to offer our brands at prices that were over 60% cheaper than the market.
This led a group of founders with expertise across design, supply chain, planning, retail, and sales to unite and launch Brand Studio. The initial days were challenging, the learning curve was steep, and the e-commerce platforms themselves were evolving rapidly.
We learned quickly, grasping the hacks, growth points, and nuances and continue to be a learning-led data and knowledge organisation, retaining the startup quality.
Tell us about the brands you operate.
We operate six brands: Highlander which caters to the casual fashion needs of Gen Z and millennial men; Tokyo Talkies, a fast fashion brand for young Gen Z women; Vishudh which offers Indian ethnic wear; Locomotive, which sells premium men’s fashion apparel; Ketch which is a young Gen Z-led brand for men and women and the most recent Hoop, which is a brand for 2- to 10-year-olds.
With over 25,000 styles spanning 30 categories available on the platform, the company has catered to over 300 million customers thus far.
What are your sales channels?
We are a digital-first business and e-commerce is our primary distribution channel.
We are present on Indian e-commerce fashion retailers including Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, Ajio and our direct-to-consumer (D2C) website www.getketch.com and the Ketch App.
Additionally, our brands are available in shop-in-shops across the country. As of December 2023, we are available on four websites in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries.
Over 65% of our customers are from tier 1 and tier 2 cities.
How do you handle inventory management?
We have a robust merchandise tracking system that allows us to forecast the performance of products and scale up or scale down inventory, depending on demand. This drives our fashion supply chain ecosystem through a network of over 300 fabric and garment manufacturers, allowing for quick turnaround and delivery.
We currently collaborate with over 400 supply chain partners, maintaining a global sourcing network and managing over 400,000 sq. ft. of warehouses that dispatch over 80,000 units daily across India.
Top 3 strategic priorities…
- Wider customer acquisition for getketch.com
- Scaling our global sourcing capabilities
- Working towards delivering real-time fashion
What are your top three success mantras?
- A deep understanding of customers
- Efficient and flat organisation
- Agility of operations
How has your financial performance been?
We attained a gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 1,300 crore in fiscal year (FY) 2023 and are currently anticipating closing FY24 with a GMV of Rs 2,000 crore.
What are your goals for the next 2-3 years?
To reach our customers through all preferred modes of shopping and to build a stronger brand presence, we are planning to enter the offline market and launch large-format stores across the country.
We also intend to maintain our continuous growth trajectory through category and market expansion, including global retail, offline stores and licensing partnerships.
