"We Can Breakeven Whenever We Want" This India fashion retail startup is dauntless of any competition; says products greatly unique.
By Aashika Jain
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At a time when Indian ecommerce companies are struggling due to intense competition and fast cash burnouts, Tushar Ahulwalia, the co-founder of fashion e-tailer StalkBuyLove is oblivious of any struggle whatsoever.
"We have very very good margins. We can break even whenever we want," Ahluwalia told Entrepreneur India at the sidelines of the TiE Summit held in New Delhi earlier this month.
He calls his StalkBuyLove's model an inherently profitable business model and says what the company is doing is very different. StalkBuyLove is a fashion-focused private label eCommerce company with a tech-enabled supply-chain model. It purchases raw material and creates prototype, which are uploaded on the company website and clothing is manufactured once an order for the same is received.
On asking if the company will expand its business to offline stores to maximize sales, Ahluwalia says he can't say for sure if they will sell offline one day.
"We choose to scale online because it is an effective way for us. We are a retail brand like any other retail brand just that we distribute only online."
A growing number of India e-tailers are now eyeing physical retail to adopt an omni-channel strategy. International retail giants including Amazon and Alibaba have set eyes on physical stores.
Ahluwalia, who is a London School of Business alumnus & co-founder of HeavenAndHome.com, dismissed any competition and said it exists only if one sells the same product.
"I think competition only exists if you sell the same product. If you sell vanilla ice cream and I sell vanilla ice cream then the only thing that differentiates us is the price. If I start selling strawberry ice cream, I have a differentiated product. So, cut throat competition only exists if we have the same products. You can sell differentiated product at 100 per cent margin as StalkBuyLove is doing," said Ahluwalia.
He calls the company's unique selling point its latest fashion everyday and clothes that customers don't get on any other website.
Indian online fashion retailers including Jabong, Myntra, Koovs, LimeRoad, Voonik and younger startups such as StyleTag and Wooplr can be counted among the company's direct competitors.
The online fast fashion brand has raised $6.07 million in 2 rounds of funding from 11 investors till date from investors such as Asian E-Commerce Alliance, William Bissel and Kalaari Capital according to research data website Crunchbase.
The company reported INR 14 crore in revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2016 compared with roughly INR 10 lakh in FY15.
StalkBuyLove cofounders include Ahluwalia's sibling Shikha Ahluwalia and ex-Rocket Internet employees Nishrit Srivastva and Aashna Chopra.
