While you would mostly hear people talking about how e-commerce has become big in India, and how branded clothing is now accessible to all, rarely you would hear people talk about the affordable, not-so-glamourous, unbranded clothing space. And that, when it is already a $50Bn annual industry in India, projected to grow to $80Bn by 2028. And while the ecommerce side of things is still sorted, thanks to wide availability on Amazon and dedicated platforms like Snapdeal, it is still a hassle for local garment shops to get quality and easy inventory, due to the complex supply chain involved in the unbranded clothing sector.
Showroom B2B, a startup that makes its intentions clear by its name, is looking to solve for those bottlenecks. And it has now found a $6.5Mn backing from the likes of Jungle Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, Saison Capital and ICMG Partners. Existing backers included Strive, Gemba Capital and Titan Capital, and debt partners Alteria Capital and Stride Ventures.
As its name suggests, the company, via its online platform, helps unbranded clothing outlets, procure inventory and manage the same with much more ease. Founded by Abhishek Dua and Shubham Gupta in 2020, the platform already works with over 500 garment manufacturers and 3,000 retailers. Apart from easing procurement, it also provides doorstep deliveries to these retailers, through an app-based system. This is the second venture for both co-founders together, with the first being in the furniture space.
With fresh capital, Showroom B2B is now looking to expand its ‘experience stores’, of which it currently operates 3 across the country. These stores are meant for retailers to come and see the quality of products being provided by Showroom B2B’s manufactures and place orders accordingly. The startup will also enhance its private labelling capabilities and bring premium and affordable fashion to retailers in Tier II and below cities, prime markets for the unbranded clothing sector.
“We are planning to strengthen our supplier base for our private labels. We already have some private labels that we source from Bangladesh. These are the products where the marginal gain is significantly better as compared to the regular marketplace”, said Dua.
