Dear Rodinhooders,
Am a fairly new entrant on this site… and am looking for some urgent feedback from the experts – hope you join in.
Have been working on an apparel ecommerce idea – reading up, meeting up, networking, connecting etc for the same – and in the midst of the foot-work was wanting to clear up a few doubts :
1) With so many apparel sites already doing so well – Jabong, Myntra, Fashion & you, Yepme… et al… is there space for starting off with one more ? Idea, of course, even if it starts out with/thru some niche segment will finally go on to straddle the whole spectrum of clothing – men, women, kids.
2) Bootstrapped as of right now – and not to be pitched in the near future for any VC’s or angel investors. But do have a start-up fund which will take care of the essentials. Obviously, not that deep-pocketed that it can be matched to any of the ad-spend power sites mentioned above. Should a brave venture out nonetheless, or will it be extremely foolish to?
3) Tie-ups for male clothing has been done (without in-house stocking), Female segment is proving more of a challenge since the style keeps changing every fortnight or so and no manufacturer is ready to take a risk – so more sources are being approached and breakthru is an eventuality – or a mix of various models will be done – some link-ups, some stocking, some samples storage, some made-to-order stuff etc. Question goes back to Q-1 – worth it spending so much time & energy in setting this up? And taking on the biggies?
Pros : Was a journalist (exposure to multiple mags), am a content & TV writer and the defacto funder, and fancy myself to be a quick learner… and while Jabong and Myntra are really good sites, do feel that Yepme’s and Fashion & You and some others can be matched to an extent… and eventually crossed over time.
And, yeah, it will be targetted at 18-35 age-group (yup, so are Myntra and Jabong) and might not have as powerful brands online as them – but will mostly exclusive (Lokhandwala-Linking Road) style jazy and funky clothing.
Better to stick to this plan – or pivot to another non-apparel idea.