Fynd, an online fashion portal has further shed light on its plans for utilizing its recently secured funding. The capital infusion in the startup was led by Messenger head Anand Chandrasekaran.
The platform will scale operations internationally by stepping foot into Southeast Asian markets, starting this April. The portal specializes in the clothing sector, though it will also begin servicing the market with footwear, accessories, decor and furnishing. Also, Fynd will extend its clothing section with the introduction of kids wear. The company is further engaged in enhancing its tech infrastructure in order to reach optimum delivery time with the gained capital.
The said funding round was undisclosed and included investments from Kae Capital, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Rajiv Mehta, CEO of Arvind Sports and Ramakant Sharma, Co-founder of Livspace apart from former Snapdeal exec Anand Chandrasekaran.
Harsh Shah, Co-founder for the platform described the expansion strategy stating,
If you look at Middle East or Southeast Asia, they have very similar structures in terms of how retail organisations are—they’ll have a master franchisee and their own systems.
We’ll start off with Southeast Asia first because delivery in-store infrastructure is much more well-developed there than in Middle East. Middle East also we’re talking to a couple of players.
Fynd’s proposal for expansion to international markets revolves around deploying the omni-channel Fynd Store product abroad, prior to the launch of its e-commerce Fynd app. The company did the exact opposite when they first released the app in India and then got into the omni-channel methods.
The said omni-channel workflow allows customers to order products of a particular brand in case a certain size or color is unavailable at the physical outlet for the brand. The product will be delivered to the customer from the nearest outlet via the Fynd store.Throwing some light on the same, Harsh said,
The reasoning was (that) with the retailer, sales is the Holy Grail. With e-commerce you can immediately show sales. With omni-channel you need to build it up, there’s the training in store and things like that.
Internationally we’ll start with Fynd Store because we need to develop delivery infrastructure and then get onto Fynd app.
Fynd also unveiled its plans for the country, the Gurgaon-based e-retailer will open up its Fynd Store product to all categories from March onwards in the country. Further, the company also plans to increase the inventory up to 10 lakh products in coming months. The company expects a three-fold growth for the year backed by its global expansion. However, the company has crossed gross sales of about Rs. 25 crore in 2016 is much more than its local rivals.
For now, the portal is operational in 11 cities alongside tie-ups with over 250 major brands. The company claims to have pan-India presence and provides same or next day delivery for products ordered via its app or website. Sreedhar Prasad, partner, e-commerce and start-ups at KPMG in India commented on Fynd’s proposition as,
This model would work in the international market, primarily in the areas where the customer is brand conscious and is clear that he wants a particular product—whether it be size or colour. Brand conscious customers and mid- to high-value retail products customers – these are the areas where this could work well.
