EORS 17: Founders of Leading D2C brands on Myntra reveal their secret sauce to success.

As the year draws to a close, celebrations and festivities are taking priority. For which, Myntra’s flagship event ‘End Of Reason Sale’ (EORS) has everything one needs to look and feel their best. The much-loved event brings together an array of shoppers and brands by offering them new collections, the best of fashion trends and unbelievable offers

This year won’t be any different. As brands get busy celebrating EORS-17 and offering the best to the customers across the country, Myntra held an engaging panel discussion featuring Dhruv Madhok, Co-founder, Arata; Anuj Khemka, Co-founder, Yellow Chimes; Ankit Rungta, Founder, Story@Home; and Udita Bansal, Founder, trueBrowns to understand their growth journey, what they’ve been upto, and excitement for EORS-17.

Addressing market gaps

The desire to do something on his own led Ankit to leave his corporate job and venture into the home furnishing space. “We wanted to bring products that match people's homes at affordable prices. We started with bedsheets and have now expanded to an entire home textile range,” he revealed, adding that Story@Home is a made-in-India brand that aims to reach every individual in the country.

Jewellery brand Yellow Chimes also began after Anuj and his wife noticed that there was a large gap in the market for men’s jewellery. Yellow Chimes offers trendy collections for both men and women. “On Myntra, we have a thriving customer base. They are fashion-oriented customers, so that gives us the motivation to keep experimenting,” Anuj explained.

Arata began as friendly banter between two friends. When Dhruv noticed that his good friend and now co-founder had used his mother’s all-natural hair gel, it inspired him to do something with it. Realising the lack of natural, conscious products in the market, they launched Arata. Even though they launched the brand across multiple categories, the hair styling products remain their best-seller.

For Udita, the secret to success has always been storytelling coupled with seamless tech. She looks back at her journey with her size inclusive fashion brand trueBrowns by saying, “The strong brand positioning and what we stood for helped us establish ourselves as a sought-after brand.”

The ever-evolving D2C landscape

India sees a new wave of D2C brands every year, and the sector valuation is expected to touch $100 billion by 2025, according to a KPMG report. For Dhruv, there are a flurry of D2C brands because they are catering to niches. “In this day and age, you can solve specific problems and reach targeted groups. We are seeing large companies acquiring D2C brands. So niches and consolidation are the two trends I foresee,” he said.

While the earlier ecosystem was led by distributors, Anuj feels this is not the case now because customers have a pool of options to choose from. “In our field, customers are very fashion-oriented, so you can keep serving as per the trends and gauge if the pricing has been right,” he said.

A brand should delve deeper into the product, according to Udita - such as premium quality, accessible pricing, are parameters to definitely keep in mind when building a D2C brand. “These are the focal points for a D2C brand. We need to deeply connect to a customer, and that's where the D2C market is moving,” she explained.

“Innovation is the backbone of the current market,” said Ankit. It has become critical to get data insights and to build a product a customer actually wants. “Omnichannel is the current trend. Customers are ready to buy from any means, and not just restricted to online or offline,” he said.

A steady partnership

Be it in terms of visibility or hand-holding their partner brands, Myntra has been a great source of support for all these brands. “Myntra is one of the rare platforms that has a large base of the fashion-forward customers. The customers are ready to experiment. Alongside this, the team at Myntra keep sharing ample insights on the market trends to help us make better business decisions. So these help us cater to our customers more effectively on Myntra,” revealed Anuj.

Udita claims trueBrowns got its maximum visibility from Myntra. She added that the data insights the team provides is important for any upcoming brand. “Myntra helps us reach the right customer and in the right way, such as accelerated deliveries, top-of-class pre and post purchase experiences for customers etc. The initiatives that Myntra keeps launching in the market are also very interesting and truly enable brands,” she said.

Ankit summed up their partnership in three words - wonderful, thrilling and upward trends. He claims that Myntra’s data insights and customer requirements helped them scale their brand from strength to strength. “It helped us innovate with the feedback. Myntra also caused a change in perception - from a home furnishing brand we have become a home, fashion and lifestyle brand. They helped us carve an entirely new identity. Fashion is now not just limited to clothes, and can extend to home as well,” he added.

“Arata saw a 4X growth in demand in just three months' ', saidDhruv as they have started to work more closely with Myntra over the last quarter. “The quality of customers is top-notch and very loyal. The UX, UI are designed to help customers shop better, their social commerce initiatives are also remarkable,” he said.

What’s in store for EORS?

As we revel in the spirit of another fabulous End of Reason Sale, the question remains ‘What will customers get?’ The founders each shed light on their preparation for the biggest sale of the year. Dhruv revealed that in the last edition of EORS, they launched their new skincare range to a lot of positive response. “We are excited about EORS-17. This time, you can expect innovations, curated selections and gift boxes,” he said, adding that they have a lot of exciting new ranges for specific needs such as scalp care, silver hair, etc.

Udita added that EORS is the best time for brands to reach a whole new set of consumers. “Our customers have come to us and become repeat customers during EORS,” she said, adding that this time customers will get to see their widest catalogue of offerings. “In the future, TrueBrowns will see category extensions, jewellery line, footwear line coming in,” she added.

Story@Home promises great offers, new collections and faster delivery. “I see our brand doing very well. We have marketing and branding plans, where we aim to capitalise on marketing trends to attract new customers,” revealed Ankit.

Team Yellow Chimes has kept inventories across India, and they have launched Christmas-themed accessories, along with new collections in the men’s and women’s segment. They will also be launching kids’ jewellery in the near future.