Recently Funded Entrepreneur, Chetan Bafna, on his venture Fetise

Fetise is fashion club exclusively for men started in March 2011, wherein they have retail luxury goods for men at the best price ranges possible. Fetise recently raised first round of funding from Seedfund. We at YourStory.in caught up with entrepreneur and the man behind Fetise, Chetan Bafna, to know more about his e-commerce startup. Why the name Fetise?

Fetise means extreme craving. It suits the state of mind that men always have.

Why 'only men'?

Considering there are not too many fashion e-commerce portals for men in India, it looked like the most attractive target audience to us mainly because of 3 reasons;

Men are comfortable buying online

Men prefer to have branded/ high end goods

Men make quicker buying decisions as compared to women

And being an 'only men' fashion venture, how has it been different from other e-commerce fashion portals?

Our target Audience is “only men” and being a niche market venture is challenging, but the fun part is we are able to understand this target audience very well and are improving our offerings and services constantly. Currently we have 60% repeat buyers and soon this figure will improve further.

How are your offices and work-force spread out?

We have warehouses in two metros - Mumbai and Delhi, soon setting up one in Bangalore as well, this is primarily to try and deliver goods to our customers in a more shorter time frame, all our other operating teams work from our Mumbai office.

What is your business model?

Fetise is a flash sale site where new events/ brands are available for a few days at much discounted prices on our site for customers to buy. We offer members the best seasonal fashion finds with an exclusive collection of clothing shoes and accessories from the most prestigious international brands. We have products for about 80% off on retail prices on all high-end fashion brands. 

Tell us a bit about the market size that you are trying to capture.

Our target market is only men within the age group of 25 to 40 years. Currently, we have around 60,000 users visiting Fetise every day, and about 500 orders are placed every day. Currently, we have an overall user base of around 7.5 lakh. I am sure these statistics give you an idea of the response we have got in a such a short time span. Actually we believe that the niche market

is a plus point for us.

Are you planning to expand outside India as well?

At the moment we are getting queries from abroad, however we would like to entrench ourselves in the Indian market and have a strong foot hold in the men’s segment and may be then we can look at expanding our operations outside India as well in the future.

Can you please share your expansion plans with us? We plan to have more warehouses in main metro cities so that we can have faster deliveries, higher the industry heavyweights to achieve the long term goals for the growth and invest in technology to help customers have a better experience when they shop on our website and do various marketing activities to create awareness and bring in good PR and revenue. Additionally, we would tie-up with various charity organizations to do activities for a good cause, all part of social responsibilities.

What are the challenges you face as an e-commerce entrepreneur in India?

Delivery issues are a common problem that almost all ecommerce sites have. But. we are working on it because we want to create the best user experience and quick delivery is something that all users would appreciate. Initially we were taking 21 working days to deliver but now we deliver in less than 14 days and soon it’s going to be less than 7 days.

Congratulations on the recent funding from Seedfund! Can you tell us what the funds will be used for?

The company intends to use the funds for scaling up product range, improving the supply chain and logistics, technology and marketing activities. Further to that a chunk of the fund will also be used to enhance the look of the website and make it more appealing by incorporating good photography, design and content as it’s a natural way to engage the customer. More time spent by customers on the website will eventually convert into sales as men are known to be impulsive buyers

Please visit https://www.fetise.com/ for further details