Consumer-centric approach helped us script success story during Covid: Saaki

D2C markets are growing at a fast pace and an innovative approach coupled with proper use of social media platforms help make a dent on the prospective customers. Ethnic wear and fusion wear is a massive market with close to Rs85,000 crore to Rs90,000-crore turnover coming from both organised and unorganised markets, Sushruti Krishna, co-founder and CEO of Saaki, tells Bizz Buzz in an exclusive interview. Saaki is a D2C fashion and lifestyle brand launched in 2020 by South Indian actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu and former Miss India winner Sushruti Krishna.

One of the first brands to be launched from the house of Merch Brands, Saaki is an ethnic fashion label inspired by the life choices of modern Indian women who are rooted in culture but global in appeal. Saaki identifies its consumers as the key drivers of its growth since it has always taken its customers’ feedback and suggestions earnestly. This consumer-centric approach has helped the brand grow exponentially in the past two years and has enabled the brand to scale to 2-digit crores of revenue annually, with 70 per cent of business generated organically from its much-loved community.

You studied architectur,e but ventured into the fashion scene. How did that happen?

I studied architecture at RV College in Bangalore, after which I founded my first clothing brand, KIS Clothing (January, 2017–June, 2018). I founded ‘Merch Brands’ in 2020 and Saaki was the first brand launched under the umbrella of Merch. My journey through Femina Miss India introduced me to the world of fashion and also gave me a deeper understanding of the influencer community and their strength in being able to drive commerce.

How different are celebrity-led brands from the rest?

Ethnic wear and fusion wear is a massive market with close to Rs 85,000 to Rs 90,000-crore turnover coming from both organised and unorganised markets. Celebrity-led brands give you the added advantage of tapping into wider regional distribution networks that aren’t buying online and give us the opportunity to reach and engage with a pool of customers we wouldn’t have been able to interact with as a non-celebrity represented a retail brand.

With celebrities associated with the brand, the pressure to practise responsible fashion is enormous. How do you manage?

As a brand, we are very conscious of the environment and support the green movement. As a sustainable initiative, we have partnered up with Re-love, a sustainable initiative that sells previously purchased products. We always look for ways to give back. We started by using sustainable packaging materials for our orders. With the launch of the Relove Saaki campaign, we have taken another step towards being a responsible fashion brand. We helped our consumers make thoughtful fashion decisions that allowed them to sell and buy pre-loved Saaki garments and extend the life cycle of a product. This initiative is an ideal example of how brands can continue to grow while having a limited impact on the environment through rethinking business practices and shifting focus on innovation.

Why did you choose Samantha Ruth Prabhu as your partner and how did the relationship-building happen?

Samantha has an enormous appeal among the masses. Apart from being a sensation in the South Indian market, she has risen to become a national figure now. Additionally, her social media presence is unmatched. Since Saaki as a brand is the representation of every next door Indian woman, I wanted to partner with a celebrity who not only had a good fan following but also could easily connect to the consumers with her style and fashion philosophy. That’s when I thought of Samantha as the ideal business partner. A mutual friend connected me to Samantha, who was also looking for business partnerships-not just for investing in an idea but building a brand together. Luckily, Samantha and I both have a similar understanding of business, and we entered the ethnic wear market because we saw potential in the category.

Is Samantha a hands-on business woman? What part of the business is she involved in?

Samantha is very enthusiastic about business. In fact, I would say she is a fantastic entrepreneur. She is the face of Saaki and is heavily involved in the design process, as well as the shoots and marketing of the products. The team works closely to incorporate her thought process into what we are building. She is quite active in handling any Saaki oriented work, and we ensure that we are both updated on everything, on a weekly basis.

Samantha and you live in two different cities, how does the coordination happen when you have to make key decisions?

Yes, the coordination became a bit challenging during the pandemic, but it was never meant to cause trouble since we planned the processes accordingly right from the first day. I knew that she would be living in a different city and would be a lot more occupied with films and commercials; hence, it was a conscious choice for me to handle the brand operations. Primarily, the show runs from here (Bangalore) because, to scale a brand, you need to invest a lot of time and effort. So I completely take care of the business operation, whereas when there’s a need to ideate fashion and new collections, I do it with her in Hyderabad.

Saaki's focus has been on Indian ethnic wear with a contemporary spin, who are you competing with?

Like I mentioned earlier, we entered the ethnic wear market because we saw potential in the category. The market is unorganized, and the brands present are at higher price points. However, we wanted to offer the same high-quality ethnic wear at a more affordable price. So technically, we were not competing directly with any brands. However, our closest competitors would be BIBA, Indya, and Fabnu by FabIndia. We just understood the market and knew that there were untapped fashion needs. Furthermore, we distinguish ourselves from other ethnic wear brands by bringing modern ethnic styles for young women.

Name the top three cities where you get a majority of customers.

We have good demand from Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

The Indian diaspora is huge and untapped. Do you see more potential for Saaki in international markets?

Undoubtedly, there has been a strong demand for ethnic clothing from many nations across the world. Although our largest customer base is in India, we generate a significant amount of business in the USA and Malaysia. The size of the global ethnic wear market is increasing at an unthinkable pace. There is so much scope and potential that in the last two years we have expanded our business to 15 countries, including the US, the UK, and Australia. International expansion is something we are eagerly looking at since 25 per cent of our present revenue comes from global sales.

What challenges did you face as a woman entrepreneur?

Being an entrepreneur is such a wonderful process, simply because it’s one of the only positions that allows one to get a sense of every part of the business. It’s meant for people who like solving problems every day, and I personally love taking on new and different challenges. I feel that now, with a larger influx of women entrepreneurs in India, the challenges have reduced significantly since there’s more support from the family and investor communities. Fortunately, I have rarely faced gender-specific challenges. So I won’t say that there were many hurdles in my journey just because I am a woman entrepreneur. However, even though this is not my situation, I believe that the most difficult challenges that a woman entrepreneur faces is access to capital, gender neutral family support and access to networks.

Pandemic was a tough time for businesses across sectors. How did you manage to stay afloat?

Saaki is a brand that was launched during the pandemic, but it has proven to sustain itself while also showing year-on-year growth. However, the major challenge was getting the goods delivered on time due to a supply chain halt. Samantha was in Hyderabad, and the entire team was set up in Bangalore, so logistically it was very difficult for us to handle, but we managed to navigate things between those windows.

Fashion labels, particularly owned by celebrity designers, are insanely expensive. What made you keep the Saaki price point affordable?

Samantha and I both come from humble backgrounds, and the only reason we have access to fashion is because of the platforms that have come our way: films for her and the Miss India pageant for me. So during the earlier days of our lives, we were fascinated by these designer clothes but could never afford a lot because of the high price points. When we started building the brand, we thought this was the best way for both of us to connect with and engage the consumers, who would love this kind of fashion at an affordable price.

How much has the digital community contributed to Saaki's success?

Our key marketing and advertising channels are digital, and we leverage ads on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat for our growth. Moreover, we have connected with our customers directly through digital media channels, which has in turn helped us drive sales organically.

What is your customer base right now?

We currently have a customer base of approximately 1.2 lakh people. Our customer demographic is quite widespread. We have an equal split of 50-50 in terms of metro and non-metro audiences. Our key audience age group is between 18 and 45 years old, with a majority being young working women in their mid-20s through early 40s.

Do you want to stick to apparel or have plans to diversify your product line?

We aim to diversify our product line and plan to soon expand into yoga wear, accessories and other categories.

How are D2C brands catapulting the Indian ecommerce market's growth?

D2C brands report faster growth on their own website. The increasing number of D2C brands in the beauty, fashion and personal care segment are driving the growth of the ecommerce market in India. D2C is a fairly new business domain and has rapidly grown during/post the pandemic.

Tell us about your business projections.

Everything from picking brand colours, to finalizing our logo to what kind of styles we make is strongly led by our social media community, who constantly help us in ensuring we bring out the right products for them. Beyond this, our international launch has been great. This launch strengthens our belief that we can build a global brand out of India.

As part of our future plan, we aim to scale our revenues 5X within the next three years on the back of a growth strategy that includes category expansion and improving brand visibility through a consumer-centric approach.