GRADUATION RESEARCH PROJECT

“A STUDY FOR KOOVS TO DETERMINE THE KEY TRENDS AND PERFORM A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS OF
THE NEW ENTRANTS IN FASHION E-COMMERCE”

SUBMITTED BY -

TANVI GUPTA

“IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE POST GRADUATE DEGREE "MASTER OF FASHION MANAGEMENT
(MFM)"

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF-

MR. SUSHIL RATURI

SUBMITTED TO -
Department of Fashion Management Studies

National Institute of Fashion Technology

Sector 4, Plot No. 20, Kharghar

Navi Mumbai, PIN - 410210

Ph. 022 2774 7100

Web: www.nift.ac.in

May, 2017

GRADUATION RESEARCH PROJECT

“A STUDY FOR KOOVS TO DETERMINE THE KEY TRENDS AND PERFORM A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS OF
THE NEW ENTRANTS IN FASHION E-COMMERCE”

SUBMITTED BY -

TANVI GUPTA

“IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE POST GRADUATE DEGREE "MASTER OF FASHION MANAGEMENT
(MFM)"

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF-

MR. SUSHIL RATURI

SUBMITTED TO -
Department of Fashion Management Studies

National Institute of Fashion Technology

Sector 4, Plot No. 20, Kharghar

Navi Mumbai, PIN - 410210

Ph. 022 2774 7100

Web: www.nift.ac.in

May, 2017

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Ms. Tanvi Gupta of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Mumbai has
successfully completed his/her GRP work titled – “a study for koovs to determine the key trends and
perform a competitive analysis of the new entrants in fashion e-commerce”

in partial fulfillment of requirement for the completion of 2 Years Post Graduate Programme "Master of
Fashion Management (MFM)" as prescribed by the Department of Fashion Management Studies (FMS),
National Institute of Fashion Technology.

This 'Graduation Research Project' report is the record of authentic work carried out by him/her during
the period from 8th January’17 to 16thApril’17 under my mentorship.

Signature:

Name of the Faculty Mentor: Mr. Sushil Raturi

Designation: Centre Coordinator

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This Project is Accumulated product of my arduous work and determination. Graduation Project at
KOOVS, was an opportunity to shake hands with the practical world of business. This project report
would have not been successful without the help of a few people. I am indebted to all those who helped
me in gaining knowledge and insight into various aspects of which turns a paper concept into final
product. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Ms. Nupur Dogra, Head Planner at KOOVS, for
providing me with the opportunity of working at KOOVS. I am grateful to Mr. Nitin Mehra, Senior
Planner women’s wear and Ms. Ridhika Gupta Asst. Planner, Pvt. Label for providing all the essential
information and guidance throughout my project. My deepest gratitude towards my mentor, Mr. Sushil
Raturi, Head of Department, FMS Department, NIFT Mumbai and all the other faculty at NIFT Mumbai
for their support and suggestions.

At last I would like to extent my heartfelt thanks to all those who have directly or indirectly contributed
for this document.

Tanvi Gupta

Batch: 2015-2017

Department: Masters of Fashion Management, NIFT, Mumbai

DECLARATION
The work presented in this document is authentic and original and is the outcome of the Graduation
Project at KOOVS.com is the author’s own ideas and labour in presenting the project. No portion of this
work has been submitted in support of any application for another degree or qualification to this
institute or any other university or other institute of learning.

DATE: 11 May’17

PLACE: NIFT Mumbai

FACULTY GUIDE: Mr. Sushil Raturi

HOD, Department Fashion Management Studies

National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai

CERTIFICATE

ANNEXURE 6- GRP INTERNAL JURY

Proceedings of the MFM GRP External Jury Examination of Ms. Tanvi Gupta held at _______

am/pm at NIFT, Mumbai.

The GRP Internal Jury Examination of Mr./Ms. Tanvi Gupta on her MFM GRP report entitled “a study for
koovs to determine the key trends and perform a competitive analysis of the new entrants in fashion e-
commerce” was conducted in the ________________________at

__________am/pm.

The following members of the Internal Jury were present:

1. __________________________________

2. __________________________________
3. __________________________________

4. __________________________________

RECOMMENDATION (EXTERNAL JURY)

The Research scholar Ms. Tanvi Gupta presented the salient features of her GRP work. This was followed
by questions from the External Jury members. The questions raised by the Jury Examiners were also put
to the scholar. The scholar answered the questions to the full satisfaction of the jury members.

Based on the scholar’s research work, her presentation and the scholar to the questions, the board
recommends that Ms. Tanvi, "Master of Fashion Management (MFM)"

clarifications and answers by the be awarded the Master Degree in

1. __________________________________

2. __________________________________

3. __________________________________

4. __________________________________

Contents

CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 2- COMPANY PROFILE 5

CHAPTER 3- MAJOR PROJECT 1 29

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 29

LITERATURE REVIEW 30

• Purpose of a Sales Trend Analysis 30

• Sales Trend Comparisons 30

• Sales Measurements 30

• Sales Trend Analysis Work 30

• Analysis Process 31

• Like-for-like sales: 31

ANALYSIS-BEST SELLERS 35

MAJOR FINDINGS(WOMEN)- 37

MAJOR FINDINGS(MEN)- 38

SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 39

CHAPTER 4-Major Project II: 40

OBJECTIVE: 40

METHODOLOGY: 40

PRIMARY RESEARCH 41

ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE 47

MAJOR FINDINGS 52

SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 53

BIBLIOGRAPHY 54

APPENDICES 55

CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION

According to eTailing India estimates,in 2016, India’s etailing market stands at $7 billion and online
fashion retail contributes $2.4 billion to it. Whereas, India’s Online Retail Revenue is expected to reach
$60 Billion by 2020 and online Fashion Retail Market is expected to touch $20 Billion by 2020.

Evolution of Online Fashion Retail

The Indian fashion retail market has witnessed several significant changes in recent years, which speaks
for country’s evolving fashion retail market. One of the most significant changes is advancing online
retail or e-tail of fashion products across the country.

The distinct trends in the macroeconomic

scenario, favorable demographic

dividend, retail specific policies and consumer buying behavior have stimulated a transformation
in the online fashion retail market. Direct outcomes from the evolution are the modernization and

corporatization of retail business. Along with it, customization of product portfolios to address the

specific needs of various consumer segments and greater success of private labels has augmented

the fashion retail eCommerce in India.

Noticeable Trends in Online Fashion Retail

• Acceptance and expansion of niche online fashion retailers such as Red Polka, Korra and Koovs
amongst many others.

• Multichannel campaign is the desired strategy among online fashion retailers.

• Offline apparel majors such as Tata, Reliance, Arvind Mills, Raymond and Aditya Birla Group
going online.

Key Growth Drivers

• More than 30% of the entire e-tailing business comprises of apparels.

• Increased spending on fashion retail by eTailers as it comes under the top 3 category purchase,
others are Consumer electronics, Book & Media (Men) and Personal Care (Women).

• Limited penetration of branded brick and mortar stores among non-urban consumers is
increasing the demand for online retailing.

Challenges

• The recent regulatory cap of 25% for sales originating from a single seller will further drive the
players to diversify their seller base.

• For current online buyers, product assortment and convenience of ordering and delivery are the
top 2 non-discount purchase reasons.

• Timely and efficient delivery of products.

• Consumer wants to have a touch & feel factor before buying product.

Higher percentage of Customer Initiated Returns (CIR) in apparel and lifestyle segment in comparison to
other segments. This increases the cost of reverse logistics.

Major Product Categories in Online Fashion Retail

• The online Indian Fashion catalog is dominated by Apparel (47%) followed by Fashion
Accessories (40%), Footwear (9%) and Lingerie (4%) in 2016.
• The Apparel catalog is mostly comprised of Ethnic Wear with 42% density.

• The Fashion Accessories sub category is dominated by the presence of 58% Jewellery items
across the Indian Fashion catalog.

2
Top Fashion e- Tailers

• Flipkart(including Myntra, Jabong), Snapdeal and Amazon are some of the major players in the
online fashion retail space.

• With the acquisition of Jabong, Flipkart owned Myntra tops the list and by 2020, they will
constitute 65-70% of market share.

• Also, there is a rise amongst niche online fashion players such as Koovs, Voonik , YepMe and
Craftsvilla.

Future
• Amazon Fashion is now among the top three categories for the Indian arm of the global e-
commerce giant which contributes 30 % of the total customers of Amazon India. So increased fashion
spending is on the line for Amazon India.

• Alibaba is actively pursuing entry into India for its B2C marketplace.

• Major eTailers are launching their own private labels.

3
4

CHAPTER 2- COMPANY PROFILE

KOOVS.COM is an online shopping store for western fashion, catering to womenswear, menswear,
footwear, accessories, jewelry and beauty products. The company has its headquarters in Gurgaon, with
main office in London, and serves to the Indian market. The website has a combination of Indian and
international brands and it also has its own range of clothing and accessories. KOOVS.COM has also
collaborated with various international and national designers to create clothing collections. It is
inspired by the international runways and the global street scene. They offer wearable fashion at
pocket-friendly prices. A first for fashion online, the team of dedicated buyers work around the clock
from offices in London and India to curate an exclusive selection of the best British and international
high street brands.

Surprisingly it has more than 100 new products launching every week across fashion & beauty category
from the edits of their best of best brands. Koovs is the only Indian e-commerce companies to
collaborate on one-of-a-kind capsule collections with the biggest names in global fashion.

The website offers customers with their easy navigation, a ramp walk video and 360° product views. It
also offers refreshing and inspiring fashion content in style stories by blog with interviews and news on
what's trending and what's hot. In a way, it is high street updated fashion at a very affordable cost.

History

KOOVS India was set up as an independent e-commerce business in 2010, operating through the
website KOOVS.COM. In 2011, the Nahata family acquired a controlling interest in the company and
shifted its focus to the sale of mobile phones and electrical goods. KOOVS.COM’s focus shifted to fashion
in 2012 when the Company, founded by Lord Waheed Ali and Robert Bready, began to supply KOOVS
India with consultancy services in fashion design for e-commerce.

In November 2013, Lord WaheedAlli, Baron Alli joined the organization as a Chairman. Subsequently, in
late 2013 Robert Bready, former Retail Director of Asos.com and Roy Naismith, former CFO of successful
global brand, French Connection joined the koovs leadership team.

In 2013, KOOVS.COM opened its first design office in London to design its private label collections. The
Indian wholesale retail arm became a subsidiary of Koovs.Plc (based in London) via a listing in March
2014, on AIM, a sub market of the London Stock Exchange.
Vision

The Koovs Group (comprising Koovs plc and its 57.5% subsidiary, Koovs Marketing Consulting Private
Ltd), operates a wholesale business supplying branded fashion products for sale exclusively on the
Koovs.com website in India.

By providing a range of products from credible international brands and designing exclusive fashion-
forward products under the Koovs label, the Group intends to support the Koovs.com website in
building the leading fashion website in India and thereby develop the Group’s revenues.

Mission

• Looks forward to bring strong international brands to the new Indian consumer. Not only to
enhance style quotient but also to be able to fuse our traditional wear with the western wear.

• Also, Extend Koovs fashion credentials by bringing both established and new designers to the
consumer in India through exclusive design collaborations.

• Develop delivery and price promises for the consumer that are reliable, affordable and price-
worthy.

USP of the company

• “Seventy percent of our products are exclusive”

• collaborations with young designers

• authentic designs from London, selection of stock from reputable domestic and international
brands and an in house private label as well.
6

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES:

The Koovs Group (comprising Koovs plc and its 57.5% subsidiary, Koovs Marketing Consulting Private
Ltd), operates a wholesale business supplying branded fashion products for sale exclusively on the
Koovs.com website in India.

fashion-forward products under the Koovs label, the Group intends to support the Koovs.com website in
building the leading fashion website in India and thereby develop the Group’s revenues.

Following are our keen objectives from Business point of view : –

• Looks forward to Bring strong international brands to the new Indian consumer. Not only to
enhance style quotient but also to be able to fuse our traditional wears with the western wears.
• Also, Extend Koovs fashion credentials by bringing both established and new designers to the
consumer in India through exclusive design collaborations.

• Develop delivery and price promises for the consumer that are reliable, affordable and price-
worthy.

GROWTH JOURNEY

• It was the time of 2010 when Koovs was started by Rajesh Kamra, Manish Tewari, Kanishk
Shukla and Amit Shukla. 2010 was the year when the e-commerce giants like Snapdeal, Flipkart and
Deals&You had not been so popular.

• Koovs started its business with heavy deals and discounts of 50-90%. Initially they started as a
micro marketing platform to offer a digital platform to millions of small businesses like restaurants,
clothes sellers etc. This helped the businesses to increase the sales of the businesses over the platform.
Being a first mover in the industry, Koovs gained the

attraction of the customers and in a little time, it has created user base of more than 5 lakh subscribers.

• Soon Koovs came in the limelight of the investors and in 2011, Benefits PLUS, a rewards and
loyalty program company invested $2 million for stake in the company. Soon after Koovs changed its
working model and moved on as an e-commerce platform from being just a deal site. Post that, 44 per
cent stake in Koovs was taken by a company owned by Nahata family.

• Initial investment of INR 140 crore was contributed by the Nahata family to start the online
platform to deal with the sale of mobiles and electronic gadgets. But soon the founders of the company
realized that Koovs with just a single segment of electronics is moving towards a dead end and then
without losing any moment Anant Nahata took a decision to change its working model. He transformed
Koovs in to a high-street fashion portal.

• It was not possible for Anant alone to make his business a success. So he joined Waheed Ali,
Robert Bready and many others from the expert field to his Koovs management team. It was the time
since when the company never looked back and till date it is gaining huge success rate.

• Last year the company appointed Mary Turner as its CEO, and Gaurav Nabh, former Quasar CEO
as its Marketing Director. With their terrific marketing strategies and out of the box thinking, the
company witnessed a huge growth and its brand awareness reached to 8 per cent from 1 per cent that
gradually helped Koovs to double the weekly website traffic to 1.5 million and as a result this Gurgaon-
based company clocked in £10 million in gross order value in FY2016. Looking more towards success, the
company aims to triple the gross order value to £34 million in the current financial year.

MARKETING STRATEGY & CAMPAIGN

▪ Since their launch Koovs has changed its business model many a times. With its current model
targeting its audience, it has tied-up with many national and international brands and designers.
Changing the marketing strategy time to time has really worked a lot for Koovs and has given them a
huge success.

▪ At the Business end – Anant Nahata, MD of the company has played a huge and most vital role.
Anant roped in Lord Waheed Alli, the chairman of Asos.com, a $3billion British

8
fashion portal as the chairman of Koovs.com and Mary Turner (CEO of AlertMe.com) as the new CEO.

▪ At the Marketing end – Marketing has driven the company towards a new way and has shown
the path for success. With the continuous use of digital media they are also running their debut multi-
media brand campaign “Step into Koovs.com” along with a music video.

▪ In November 2015, Koovs launched a Rs. 10 crore advertising campaign, called ‘Step Into Koovs’,
led by Turner, across platforms—cinema, television, outdoor advertising and digital media. The
advertisement, targeted at an Indian audience, depicted the sartorial empowerment that the company
promises its customers by showcasing the fashion journey of two youngsters, Nick and Sai, in a dream
sequence around the world, from the streets of Mumbai to a rooftop in Manhattan.

Led by Anant Nahata, Waheed Alli and Robert Bready (former founder-directors at UK-based online
clothing platform Asos), Koovs offers apparel and accessories from 150 international brands, as well as
its own private label. It has seen rapid growth in the current fiscal, with sales shooting up by 115 percent
—from Rs. 22 crore in April-July 2015 to Rs. 47.3 crore in the same period in 2016.

Koovs collaborates with different people who can give the brand a design edge over rivals. For instance,
it recently teamed up with London-based illustrator Hattie Stewart, known for her unique and playful
artwork, to design a women’s collection that adheres to everything that the Koovs brand stands for—
cool, comfortable, laid-back and quirky. Similarly, Koovs tied up with Delhi-based designer-duo Gauri
and Nainika Karan in early 2016 for a line of elegant party dresses for women that was launched on the
website in November 2016.
9
Figure1- collaborations over the years at Koovs.

10

“What we want to be is the fashion-forward ecommerce place that the young, star-conscious person
wants to come to,” says Alli (52), executive chairman of Koovs. “We want to help you dress and be
fashionable.” Alli, a Labour life peer in the UK, is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur with interests in media
companies. The company he had earlier founded, Asos, is a global fashion and beauty etailing giant,
focusing on affordable and fashionable merchandise.

Gagan Chauhan, senior business analyst at consultancy RedSeer, says the growth rate Koovs has
achieved can be attributed to the fact that the company has pivoted itself as a fashion-centric portal and
seems to have created a loyal set of customers. Koovs is also distinct from other clothing platforms, such
as Jabong, Myntra and Amazon, because it concentrates on disruptive designs, has its own private label,
and has an inventory-led delivery model. The resultant spurt in sales has also attracted a spate of
investments. Since September 2015, Koovs has raised Rs 262 crore, the most recent being Rs 33 crore
from the investment arm of Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL). In May 2016, HT Media bought
an 8.31 percent stake for Rs 29.1 crore; their stake now stands at 6.8 percent. The company says it is on
track to deliver 14 lakh orders in FY17, up from 6.5 lakh in FY16. Koovs claims to get 4,000 orders every
day which, on a good day, can go up to 10,000. “The objective is to become the No 1 fashion destination
by 2020,” says Turner, adding that the company hopes to break even by 2019.

Online fashion retailer Koovs has posted gross sales worth Rs 47.3 crore (£5m) for the trading period of
April 1 to 31 July 2016. In the same period last year, the company had posted gross sales worth Rs 22
crore. This signifies a growth of 115% year-over-year in gross sales. Note that this value is equal to the
gross sales of orders placed (including taxes) via the ecommerce store and does not represent the
revenue of the company.

In the previous quarter, Koovs had posted gross sales worth Rs 29.56 crore for the trading period of
September 28, 2015 to January 3, 2016, representing a 210% y-o-y growth. The fashion group claims to
have more than 1.2 million registered during April 1 to 31 July 2016; in the same period last year, Koovs
claimed to have 0.4 million registered users.

The company also said that it had 1.4 million weekly visitors to the website during the above mentioned
trading period, registering a growth of 98% from 0.6 million weekly visitors in the same period last year.
It has also reported a shopping cart conversion rate of 1.4% compared to 1.3% in the same period last
year. The company’s claim of 115% sales growth y-o-y is “ahead of India’s

11

market benchmarks of 50% annual growth in ecommerce, and 75% in online fashion,” Koovs added in a
statement.
Figure 2- graphs depicting growth in user engagement and increase in app orders from 2015 to 2016.

Koovs stocks Indian and international brands across menswear and womenswear, including clothing and
accessories. Some of the key womenswear brands for koovs.com include AX Paris, Lipsy, Glamorous,
Warehouse, Lavish Alice, Oasis, New Look, Dead Lovers, Forever New, Blueberry, Thursday Friday and
Oliv. Some key menswear brands include Nike, Criminal Damage, New Look, Only & Sons, Addict,
Majestic, Jeepers Peepers, Rare Rabbit, Voi Jeans, Blueberry Men, Jeepers Peepers and Flying Machine.

12
Figure 3.1- men’s brands at Koovs.
Figure 3.2- women’s brands at Koovs.
13

Product assortment at koovs

Figure 4.1- Product assortment for men at Koovs.
Figure 4.2- Product assortment for women at Koovs.

14

VARIOUS DEPARTMENT UNDER KOOVS:

TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

This team was wholly responsible for the back-end & front-end modulation and providing koovs online
portal to users. Along with regular site, we also had mobile and in-store technology experiences that
were often powered by what we were doing on the e-commerce side. This became a very significant
part of the business as mobile evolved and eventually, it became its own team. Creating various product
links when the product goes live or seasonal –sale links are main functions of this team. They are the
middleware between in the inhouse departments work to display a product live on the site.

PRODUCT TEAM

This was led by a VP, that was versed in e-commerce. The role of this head of e-commerce was to ensure
that all components of the site worked together and encompassed the vision of the entire unit. It was
then comprised of several product managers that were assigned to various parts of the site. For
instance, I was in charge of interactive media and before that loyalty, which covered taking care of
features for Beauty Insider and Sephora reviews. Each product manager takes charge of each area, and
is fully responsible for it. Within this team, you sometimes have UX people too.

EDITORIAL/CONTENT TEAM

This was an editorial team dedicated solely to all content online. This would comprise of blog posts,
product descriptions, email marketing, on-site content (billboards, buttons,etc)and social media posts.

IT TEAM

For this team which was quite large, this included project managers who were in charge of various
projects, the execution of said projects, coordination with all business stakeholders, engineers who built
and maintained the site, and also any other staff members who were supporting the e-

15

commerce teams on their daily IT needs. This was led by the CTO of the company, and a technical lead
on the e-commerce side.

BUYING TEAM

The Buying team are instrumental in making Koovs the first for fashion and trends across Womenswear
and Menswear. Within their Own Buy function, teams focus on developing and delivering a range that
pushes the boundaries and meets the needs of our customer. The Buyers work closely with several
business areas including Design, Merchandising, Marketing and Garment Technology and has
relationships with a wide supplier base ensuring that the product deliver is the best it can be! The
buying teams are responsible for creating & sourcing the brand mix for their department, covering big
commercial brands through to high end designers and emerging brands to offer our customer the most
exciting fashion trends and create a point of difference in the global market.

PLANNING TEAM

Setting up sales target, analyzing past records and closely working with the buying team is the planning
team, they work on number crunching compiling huge loads of excel sheet data. Achieving marked sales
target in a major concern of planning team.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT/WAREHOUSE TEAM

Without this team, it'd be hard to function. This team is responsible for putting up sku’s, making sure all
sku’s are ready to go, product descriptions are accurate, etc. This team works super hard to ensure that
everything within the CMS system works well, and with the millions of SKUs there

are, this is a very key part of the e-commerce organization.

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BUSINESS MARKETING TEAM

With several teams in place, these are the key marketing components. Email marketing, this was a large
team, and a very critical part of any e-commerce/retail business since we're talking about

customer re-engagement and communication. Social media marketing It is so critical to be part of the
customer voice, and I saw this happen firsthand. Today, this is still a large part of e-commerce, but it has
really evolved from just FB and Twitter, to Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, to being implemented on site in
the form of in-store technology and so much more. This can also extend in some instances, to blogger
outreach

SEO/SEM teams

This is a significant part of the marketing team as well, considering users still use google to search for
items. I'd say this is much more significant for smaller e-commerce companies that need to be
discovered, but nevertheless a fundamental part of marketing spend since advertising is continuously
evolving past paid search, and content remains king. Hence the overall functions of a marketing team
include-

• maintaining & expanding media relations especially with bloggers, media influencers, celebrity
stylists. Bloggers, Media, Influencers, Celebrity Stylists.

• Strategizing the Fashion & Lifestyle PR segment for the website or brand.

• Communicating well with the Stake holders and actively keeping good contacts amongst
different departments for effective and efficient outcomes along with managing the PR agency.

• Competition Mapping and maintaining a report for the same.

• Well conceptualizing power of ideas while implementing and monitoring Digital/social media
campaigns.
• Develop and sustain partnership with social media team and various internal and external cross-
functional departments.

• Fair accountability for social media execution across all social platforms.

• Help in strategic development and execution of all social media marketing initiatives. As well
managing day-to-day social media activities including content generation, campaign development,
community outreach, paid social

17

advertising, promotions performance analysis, ongoing moderation and optimization.

• In Addition to this more efforts tied to social analytics and business metrics (measurements) in
order to adequately track performance, optimize initiatives, and establish best practices in brand
publishing.

DIGITAL MARKETING TEAM

This team joined hands-in-hand with the marketing & PR team to develop banners for the products,
making sale promotions banner, landing page banners, marquee banners, styles-stories. Editorials,
trends banners which were uploaded on the page by the visual merchandiser.

Banner making is the continuous efforts tasks which was the decisive outcome of a visual merchandiser,
a digital editor as well a marketing person to bring out the best combination on the page. Digital team
also works towards designing and managing digital marketing campaigns on facebook, instagram, twitter
and continously optimize it for a better ROI & CPA.They also Manage the creation and delivery of
content for Facebook & Instagram and execute brand/performance campaigns by Setting up
Remarketing programs, by establishing payout structure, extensive digital marketing & e-commerce
strategies and implement tactics including social media marketing, remarketing generating brand
awareness and increasing user engagement as well as driving online sales Coordinate with internal
teams and agencies to strategize.

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PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AT KOOVS.COM

The new product development involves various department in koovs, the buying team, warehouse
(production team), planning team, creative team as well as the marketing team. With their continuous
efforts are planning a product is made viable to the user. Following are the steps through which every
product undergoes.

Step 1: Initial process hits with the working of buying team in selection of products. The buying team
from koovs consist of 3 categories of 5 persons each Men’s wear, Women’s wear and Accessories. Every
product order and management is carried out by the respective team members. Buyers contacts
different vendors from the brands under koovs like Ax Paris, Warehouse, Alibi, Only & sons etc., these
vendors send product samples for approval to the buyers in the koovs team, deciding upon the color,
design and other various aspects for the season the buyers makes a detailing on the excel sheet. This
sheet consists of various description information about the product including its picture too, further the
sheet/date is forwarded to the head buyer in London, who approves it finally. Then the order of samples
is sent to the vendors. A purchase request is generated depending upon the purchase order.

For the private label brand of ‘koovs’, the designers from London conceptualize the product depending
upon the season, trends, color. With the samples range selection is done which is usually done in U.K
(London).

Step 2: After the purchase order, the production and working on the whole lot for the samples starts
which usually takes place for a span of minimum 1-2 months. When the product stock is received in the
warehouse it needs to be identified and recorded for further procedures in the house, therefore a GRN
(Goods Received Note) is created which is the first step in the purchase order process. This is to confirm
the delivery and acceptance of the goods. The stock management clerks in koovs are wholly responsible
to maintain this data as it helps in stock management and accurate inventory records when goods arrive
in the warehouse. Clerks can issue multiple GRN to suppliers for single orders when good are shipped
separately. Before making the final payment, clerks compare GRN from multiple shipments to the
payment invoice to ensure the correctness of the balance money. But for the re-order of the styles in
demand there is no such requirement of GRN creation.

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Step 3: Production team (warehouse team) &Planning team holds and creates the record for all the
product SKU’s providing detailing of products in terms of category, brand, style id, Line id, season, selling
price, net landed cost, achieved margin, warehouse stock, total cover etc. These details are very much
needed to keep the track of inventory in the warehouse.

Step 4: Every sample from the stock has a shoot done for itself. The studio team performs the catalogue
shoot and the video for the clothing as well as non-clothing category. This is managed by a studio
manager.

Step 5: The shoot pictures and videos are then forwarded to the content team or the editing team which
checks the image quality, color mapping, sizing and performs all kinds of quality check before the picture
is uploaded. Product centric content i.e. the description, size chart is written on back-end for the
product before it is turned live.

And hence once the content quality team approves the product is made live and visible of the site.
Within this the inventory is checked regularly by the planning team and depending upon the marketing
of the product banners are promotions are created by Digital Marketing team.

PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Following are the functions carried by a planning team.

Task Scheduling: Preparation of time and action calendar for each order from order receiving to
shipment for the consumers. This schedule contains list of tasks to be processed for the styles,
categories, brands. Against this each tasks planner mentions when to start a task and what is dead line
for that task. Some tasks like making a product live, declaring it on sale etc.Name of responsible person
(department) for the job is being listed.

Inventory Planning (Inventory): Preparation of inventory information sheet as per buyer specification
sheet and various costing allotted to each product.
20

Loading production: Planner defines which style to be loaded to the website page and how much
quantity to be loaded.

Process selection & planning: Processes needed to complete an order vary style to style. According to
the order (customer) requirement they select processes for the orders. Sometime extra processes are
eliminated depending upon the choices made by the planner for the business.

Estimating sale quantity: Planner estimate daily sales in terms of units according to the styles work
content. With the estimated production figure, work is performed vigoursly by the visual merchandiser
as well as the marketing team involving planner also estimate the sale.

Capacity planning: Planning department plays a major role during order booking. They decide (suggest)
how much order they should accept according to their estimated sale for the season or the current
trend. Excess of order booking can lead to over-stocking.

Line planning: Preparation of detailed line planning with daily production target for the production line.
Line planning can made after discussing with production team and Head Planners and buyers.
Follow up and execution: A Head planner checks on whatever plan is made is executed by planning
department. The head planner keeps close look whether everything is progressing according the plan.
Chasing other department heads on daily basis to keep plan on track. They update order wise completed
tasks on the Time & action Calendar. When they found something is going to be late they create an
alarm about the delay.

Purpose of Role

The Ecommerce Sales Planning Manager’s duties integrate with Sales Planning and Business
Development accountabilities. The successful associate will serve as a portfolio expert and a critical
communication link to Field Sales and company management who possess a penchant for

21

collaboration across many stakeholders and is comfortable operating in a sometimes ambiguous

environment.

This role is responsible for knowing the current product portfolios (e.g. assortment, pricing, shelving,
and promotion) and deploying tactical best practices for all online retailers. This expertise will enable
this associate to be the ecommerce team’s point-of-contact for all MAP policy questions/issues, while
ensuring all digital sales fundamentals (e.g. pricing, claims, etc.) are accurate via collaboration with the
Digital Content Manager. This associate will understand all product transitions and new product
launches across all brands (0-2 years out) and will actively manage these changes mitigating potential
sales loses and delivering accelerated sales by executing best-in-class digital sales fundamentals.
Additionally, this role is responsible for working with the customization team and brand project teams to
ensure all ecommerce specific product offerings meet/exceed in-market launch dates complete with
accurate digital sales fundamentals.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT IN PLANNING

Product Management works differently depending upon different companies and domains. Some lay
focus on project management tools while others concentrate on UX skills. But the core position remains
the same creating glue between business development, Product development and the users. However,
every industry has its own twists on product management on what the role really entails, and where you
make your impact as a PM.

In every e-commerce company, a “product” being a major tool to engage consumers with your brands
and giving money for interacting with not just the brand’s web-page but also the App too. It’s the overall
experience from browsing, to ordering, to receiving a package at your doorstep - and in some e-
commerce companies cases it’s the physical products as well. The digital aspect of the customer
experience is one of many different touch points your brand has with its customers.

In e-commerce, typically there are 3 general areas which aids the product management for any
company.

22

• Merchandise: Product or Merchandise is the only foremost important sellable product that is
designed and manufactured in a unique way for any company. For Koovs it’s the clothing and non-
clothing fashion, the design and overall strategy behind every moving line. The end product is what the
consumers purchases and enjoys.
• Consumer Technology: Every consumer faces the digitization of the product such as the
company’s website or mobile application or any other channel that has an interface with the potential
consumers, let it be promotional ads or emails. Consumer technology is a machine that brings
customers to the brand and generates revenue orderly.

• Non-Consumer Technology: Non-consumer’s aspects of business includes infrastructure,

operations, payments and logistics. This forms the most intermediary part of the business in maintain
the customer relationship.

These teams rely on one-another directly or indirectly, one brings the sellable merchandise, the other
brings the consumer orders while the third party executes and delivers those orders.

WHAT DO P. M’S DO?

Unlike any other business companies, Product Managers do more of the same work in an e-commerce
company. Depending upon which domain of the company working on, the day to day work might be
different but there few cores that are uniform across. However, customers are the main motivation
behind the product managements in any business. As companies and brands, business is performed to
serve and provide great service and experience to them. Everything should be geared to fulfil the goals
set by the company.

Following are the functionalities of Product Management.

METRICS & ANALYSIS

A big part of the job under Product Management is to define various KPIs and regularly keep a track of
their analysis over time in order to have a better view that how well the business is going
23

and what other methods can be adopted to make business perform better. Some of the tricks might
mean getting dirty with excel sheets for a few hours or a continuous week or just looking at already
existing dashboard set by the team under previous reports. Becoming a part time analyst by gazing at
the metrics. The best metrics are the ones that simplifies the study of how well a business is going today
vs yesterday and future transitions within the business. These KPIs are used to understand the progress
of the business over time incrementally.

TESTING

Testing vary differently depending upon the culture adopted by the company. Testing is make to ensure
that new changes are not pushed in, until they’ve been fully tested against their respective metrics tool
and they need to be necessarily either marginally or significantly better than their predecessors or better
in a way of performance. Generally, Tests are run for various reasons.

• User Experience

Running tests for better user experience is always a useful. Necessarily better user experience yields
higher performance. These tests should come in well thought-out and ideally tested with a small group
of people first.

• Performance

Performance or Running tests are carried out to increase the conversion rates (CRO), or the average
order size and these tests should be carefully run in the areas of the business that are attempted to
improve upon. It is important to make sure you run tests in areas that you can have the biggest impact
first. Also It is important to never deviate too much from your brand promise and guidelines while
running these tests.

Other tests amongst these are smoke tests performed when introducing a new feature that is a part of a
long term business strategy. The goal is to increase conversion rate without decreasing the engagement.

• Customer and Market Research

24

Customer development and market research are great ways to understand and reach to the core of the
problem and at the same time come up with a creative as well as beneficial solution for the products
that your business might want to introduce. It’s a great idea to do some Customer Service every week to
be never forget who you’re serving and what it’s all about.

• Prioritization & Return on Investment

It is a key metric to think on when it comes to putting resources to pull out a new outcome or fixing
something that is already broken or spending time to explore an idea. Numerous questions should be
kept in mind whilst these like, How will he new venture will push the business towards long-term
stategy and how smallest version will yield biggest return also the impact of the project.

In fact, prioritization is the most important part. Using the KPIs set for the business, to make intelligent
decisions around the priority in which projects are going to get built and launched.

• Communication
Attempting to prioritize and understand the impact of the tests and the direction the product will be
going, team has to understand different aspects of the business. Using known knowledge, Decision
making becomes wiser and communication more precise, efficient in respectful manner. When you’re
likely to make the wrong decision altogether or haven’t thought well enough, this can come back to
making decisions backed with proper knowledge and understanding of the market, your customer base
and a little bit of gut feeling.

A BRIEF ABOUT ONLINE VISUAL MERCHANDISING

Visual merchandising in Koovs falls under the planning department.

The role of a Visual merchandising is a form of retail strategy that maximizes the aesthetics
appurtenance of a product with the intent to increase sales or conversion rate. Visual merchandising
plays with the look, feel and culture of a brand. If it is done well, it can create

25

awareness while majorly increasing brand loyalty. And most importantly, it draws customers in and
close to the sale – all based on the aesthetic quality of your retail display.

When it comes to a brick and mortar stores Success factors of visual merchandising include the stores
appearance, Lightings, Uniformity, POS, sale products, colors, line, shapes, directions, textures,
presentation, signage, and the “wowing” factor each of these elements bring together in a retail setting.
When these elements come altogether to showcase a brand, it enriches the customer experience,
leading to a positive shopping experience and increased sales.

But for an ecommerce site Online, visuals are everything. Shopping from a computer, tablet, or phone,
customers can’t reach out and touch your garments or try them on. They’re not influenced by store
layout, witty window displays, or carefully chosen color scheme. All they have is the screen and your
images. Following are the importees that surely needs to be executed to give the appearance of quality,
assurance via a website over a retail store.

- Getting beautiful, high-resolution photos of the products are the no 1 asset. Making them clear,
uncluttered, and high-resolution. Zoomability is essential, whether it is an automatic mouse hover on
the product picture or the classic finger swipe on a mobile app.

- Model shoots are some great added extras to a rather flat product shots.

- Addition of some Product Video is the next level – though an expensive option, but with
potentially great results.

- Playing with the layouts of landing page or directed page, creating inspiring blog posts or trend
adaption amongst crowds, they’re often masters of merchandising, shooting products in fun flat layouts.

- A catchy product description is the final piece of the puzzle, this is where all the necessary
information customers can’t get from the photos needs to be filled in.

The important components of a visual merchandising strategy are challenging. These may include:

• The attention-grabbing banners and displays, providing product descriptions and promoting

schemes like “Buy One Get One Free” and others use eye-catching fonts.
26

•Unlike a retail store a website cannot have POS. But there are extending ways to showcasing the POS
on an ecommerce site to increase the basket size. Combining selling one product with other in a way
that the customer is highly motivated to buy others too.

•Shoppers’ engagement at POS. Good deals versus fostering relationships and knowing also where
social media fits in and the tapping the power of crowd-sourcing to enhance the product assortment.

• Delivering unmatched customer service to valued customers by being proactive and

continuously looking for people in need of assistance and being a resourceful site, can distinguish your
business from the competition and foster long-term and effective “relationship marketing”.

• The advent of online stores and mobile technology under e-commerce and m-commerce too are
latest additions to the multichannel mix of mail order catalogues and bricks and mortar.

• New innovations in retail sector. Retail innovation is all about driving down costs and driving up
spending of the costumer. Let it be inventory control or product mix; ecommerce or cost control, the e
commerce sector should have the capacity to accommodate a sustaining flow of pioneering products,
innovative channels of delivering products and ingenious ways a team to hold down the incurred costs
to sustain the business profitability in the most competitive consumer markets. More to these, visual
merchandising is an extension of the store’s customer service.

Even if one intends to stretch their retail process into the sketch of web-based shopping, literally
changing shoppers point-of sale environment, and regardless of any upcoming challenges in retail,
whilst not hampering the brand’s visual identity. The major goal is to project a pleasing and charismatic
image because visual merchandising is about customer loyalty, regardless of how the point-of-sale
environment is.
Successful virtual merchandizing and brand delivery is all about understanding and satisfying customer
needs. So the more that a company understands its consumers, brand and competitors, the better it can
define and refine its own virtual merchandising practice to deliver better solutions in store to improve
the customer experience.

As they say, even though the idea is not “rocket science”, it does necessarily require real expertise in
store designing and layout, space planning and plan presentation expertise and a true real

27

commitment in adopting a consumer led approach. Essentially, virtual merchandising has always been a
set of practical selling tools to influence what, when and how consumers buy from your website – and
no serious 21st century retailer(online/offline) can afford to ignore the powerful effects and huge
commercial potential offered under implementation of better virtual merchandising.

No matter how this is achieved, either by increasing the size of spend, type and quantity of items that
customers buy, the frequency of their purchases, the brands and lines that shoppers choose and even
down to the stores if they choose to hop in. Practical examples of virtual merchandising techniques
include prioritizing the location of those products that are on promotion or in trend to increase the
volume and conversion rate. Clubbing different or similar, yet related product items together to create
higher value is a commonly used strategy, as are all-inclusive ideas such as outfit combinations in
fashion stores, meal suggestions in supermarkets to inform, influence and inspire customer to purchase.

Good virtual merchandising can even go down deeper into the micro-detailing of understanding which
shelf/ page/product positions perform better to influence what brands shoppers buy and the rate of
sale.
28

CHAPTER 3- MAJOR PROJECT 1

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES:

1. Primary objective-

• To create an archive of secondary sales data and develop sales trends from Dec-April

2. Secondary objective-

• To prepare week on week sales reports and

• To Perform sales trend analysis from the best sellers and determine the Key performance
indicators at koovs.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

• Descriptive and exploratory research

DATA COLLECTION:

1. Archiving of data across seasons (Dec’16-Apr’17)

• Collection of FULL PRICE, MD, PROMO DSR data

• Checking of FULL PRICE, MD, PROMO DSR data

• Consolidation of data by removing duplicated information.

2. Creation of Formats for data representation

• Organizing data WEEK WISE, SEASON WISE, for both FULL PRICE and

MARK DOWN.

29

LITERATURE REVIEW

SALES TREND ANALYSIS:

A sales trend analysis is a review of sales-related measurements or key performance indicators (KPIs)
during a specified period. The period may be short term, midterm or long term. Sales trends may go up,
go down or remain unchanged.

• Purpose of a Sales Trend Analysis-

The purpose of a sales trend analysis is to gain a better understanding of past performance to answer
specific questions, to solve business problems and/or to predict future performance.

• Sales Trend Comparisons-

It is common to review and compare sales results month over month, quarter over quarter, year over
year and actual compared to budget. A more detailed trend analysis may include information by product
line, geographic location, sales territory, sales team and individual sales representative.

• Sales Measurements-

The types of sales measurements or KPIs that are reviewed during a sales trend analysis include booked
sales revenue, net sales revenue, sales gross profit, achievement of sales quota, products sold, cost of
sales and sales pipeline. A sales productivity trend analysis also may include a review of sales telephone
calls, customer visits and quotes generated.

• Sales Trend Analysis Work-

If a sales trend analysis focuses on the entire sales department and is strategic in nature, it is most often
completed by a member of sales management, finance management or a trained sales analyst. A sales
supervisor or sales representative may complete smaller scale analyses.
30

• Analysis Process-

During a sales trend analysis, the analyst looks at what results changed and why they changed. The
analyst may look for patterns, outliers and statistics that seem too high or too low.

• Sell through analysis-

It is the selling activity of a textbook title within a defined period of time. The sell-through percentage is
a quantification of "success" for a given title or course (arrived by averaging the sell-through of each
title), and provides a point of comparison and a measure for goal setting by the textbook buyer. The
higher the sell-through percentage, the lower returns/overstock a buyer will experience.

• Like to like growth-

It is a measure of growth in sales, adjusted for new or divested businesses. This is a widely-used as an
indicator of retailer’s current trading performance. The adjustment is important in businesses that show
a significant dynamic of expansion, disposals or closures. To compare sales figures from different periods
is only meaningful, as a measure of the effectiveness of the sales function, when using the same basis
for measurement.

It is a method of valuation that attempts to exclude any effects of expansion, acquisition, or other events
that artificially enlarge the company's sales

• Like-for-like sales-

It is a comparison of this year's sales to last year's sales in a company, taking into consideration only
those activities that were in effect during both time periods. It is a method of valuation that attempts to
exclude any effects of expansion, acquisition or any other event that artificially enlarge a company's
sales. Companies may disclose like-for-like sales for various time periods, such as quarterly and yearly.

It help companies and investors determine the sales performance over a certain period of time when
compared to the same period of time one year earlier, such as comparing the second quarter

31

of 2012 to the second quarter of 2011. They are typically represented as a percentage of growth or a dip
in sales.

AVERAGE SALES CONTRIBUTION

OVER 14 WEEKS
60

40

20

women

men

Brands

Private label
Figure 5- graph showing average sales contribution of men and women in brands and private label
respectively
32

Monday reports (week on week report)

Fig 6.1- sales by main category total of week 31
33

Fig 6.2- sales by private label of week 31.

Fig 6.3- sales by brands of week 31

Above tables show the Monday report of week 31, showing category wise sell through, budgets, sale
value, unites compared to last week and last year and showing the comparison with the budget and
sales plan determined for the week, the findings for the above report are as follows-
 PL Brands MW Total

Department Qty Value Mar% Qty Value Mar% Qty Value Mar%

Clothing 10,219 49,02,878 23% 11,530 74,43,467 9% 21,749 123,46,345

14.5%

Non-Clothing 1,208 3,08,282 4% 1,857 10,74,860 13% 3,065 13,83,142

10.9%

Footwear 1,838 11,09,805 15% 2,998 37,05,653 7% 4,836 48,15,458

9.1%

Grand Total 13,265 63,20,965 21% 16,385 122,23,980 9% 29,650 185,44,945

12.8%

- We have had a total sale of 1.85 cr, decline from LW by -23.5% and increase from LY by 129%.

- FP and promo contributed 82% to the total sales, while Brands contribution was 66 % and PL at
34 %

- In PL FP and promo sales saw an 84% uplift in accessories.

- Within brands highest sales uplift has been seen in vests at 39%, accessories at 38%, while
footwear saw a decline of -27% vs last week.

- Within brands Non-Clothing aw a 7% uplift over last week.

- Brands which performed well for us were:

34

1. Within Clothing: Spring Break contributed 7% to the total sales, Blue Saint at 7% and Blotch at
6%.
2. Non-Clothing: Nike at 19%, New Era at 7% and Pataaka at 6%.

- 3. Footwear: Nike at 21%, Tread at 12% contribution.

Key categories which saw an uplift are as below:

- In comparison to LY categories which have seen sales uplift are shorts at 439%, Shirts at 269%%
and Jog Pants at 137%.

Brands

Main options options

LW LW Last Last
Vs Last Vs Last

var LY
Year Year
Yr Yr

Category TY LY
Units Value

(Qty) (Value)
(Qty) (Value)

Shorts 49 22 123% 194 167877 27

31161 619% 439%
 Shirts 168 187 -10% 1061 990457 191
268086 455% 269%

Jeans 92 88 5% 788 965379 150

277529 248% 36%

Jog Pants 169 95 78% 900 975753

196 298685 227% 137%

- Categories which have seen a sales uplift are shorts at 157%, Trousers at 311% and T-shirts at
76%.

PL

Last Last
Vs Vs

Main options options

LW LW
Last Last

var LY
Year Year

Category TY LY
Units Value
Yr Yr
 (Qty) (Value)

(Qty) (Value)

Shorts 17 17 0% 175 129625

55 50388 218% 157%

Trousers & 29 10 190% 304 291328

51 70881 496% 311%

Chinos

T-Shirts & 172 189 -9% 2656 1045165

1235 593175 115% 76%

Polo Shirts

ANALYSIS-BEST SELLERS
Each week a best seller report was made for both men and women for categories of brands and private
label, based on units sold and value both. 16 best seller reports were then consolidated to find out the
trend analysis for the past four months.

35

Out of the best sellers of these sixteen weeks’ trend analysis is done based on the highest ROS i.e. the
maximum number of units sold per week. Categories chosen for trend analysis are dresses, tops and
shoes for women & shirts, denims and shoes for men as these are the core categories for men and
women.
Fig 7.1- best sellers for men in week 31 by value

36

Trend analysis

To perform the trend analysis, three core categories from each men and women are chosen i.e.

dresses, tops for women and t-shirts, denims and shoes for men. Top three sellers from each

category are picked out based on highest ROS.

ROS= QUANTITY SOLD

WEEKS IN BUSINESS

Following is the women best sellers for dresses tops and shoes based on the highest ROS.
MAJOR FINDINGS(WOMEN)-

• Midi dresses are doing very well for Koovs as all the best sellers for previous 16 weeks were midi
dresses, it shows the phasing out of mini dresses.

• White sneakers are one the major trends for both men and women, all three best sellers are white
shoes in distinct brands

• Tops have a common best seller i.e. Garfield collection from Vero moda, it has very high ROS of 33.3,
34.67 and 43 respectively which means Koovs sold 33.3, 34.67 and 43 pieces of these items per week
since its time in business.

Fig 7.2- women bestsellers in 16 weeks with highest ROS.

37

Following is the men best sellers for shoes, shirts and denims based on the highest ROS.

MAJOR FINDINGS(MEN)-
• Same as women, even men have white shoes as their best sellers.

• Private label is doing well in men’s denims, as all bestseller denims are from Koovs’s private label, K
denim.

• Solid color cotton shirts are doing well for men shirts summer colors like aqua blue are doing very well.

• Women best sellers have

marginally higher ROS compared to men.

Fig 7.3- Men bestsellers in 16 weeks with highest ROS.

38

SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• Koovs must get more merchandise from brands like Vero moda and forever new on board, as all
women best seller tops are from Vero moda, customers prefer buying such branded clothes online as
they get promotional benefits on such products with koovs as koovs always has some or the other offers
and promotions going on which they wouldn’t get otherwise if they purchased it from offline stores.

• Though private label for men isn’t doing that well, but denims in private label are the best
sellers among bottoms, so it must emphasize more on promoting its inhouse brand through bloggers
and fashion leaders in the market through Instagram and snapchat, so that it creates a good impact
without having to incur huge expenditure on advertisement and promotion, koovs could use fashion
leaders like Prince (from bigg boss/roadies) or Karan Wahi, as they are current youth fashion leaders,
associating with them, k denim’s sales could boost up.

• Koovs has USP that it has a wide unique range of footwear for both and women, with very
distinct and fast fashionable designs, though footwear are doing well, a little more discount for footwear
could boost up the sale. Koovs could put up a discount of 25-30% on footwear regularly to increase the
sale as soaring prices of footwear are one of the major reasons for loss of sale of footwear.
39

CHAPTER 4-Major Project II:

OBJECTIVE:

To perform a competitive analysis by studying the competitors of Koovs i.e. Ajio, Abof and Tata Cliq for-
• online visual merchandising and

• customer’s perception and to be able to draw a conclusion to increase the efficiency of Koovs
over its competitors

METHODOLOGY:

• Observatory research of the visual merchandising of all four websites based on

-Banner and Landing pages’ placements and focuses.

-Trends currently live on the website

-Promotion strategies if any live currently.

-Product shoot style on the website.

-Joining discount

• Primary research is an exploratory research, questionnaires were prepared and distributed

• Sample size- 75 people.

40

PRIMARY RESEARCH

• Trends live
Koovs is very vocal about the trends and edits it has in store, the banners are quite big and eye catchy
which is obviously an advantage for the company as the customer is able to actually see the trends and
shop from them, it gives a psychological pleasure to a customer that he/she’s buying something which is
currently trending, it even has pictures of the international runways showing the similar brands and
celebrities spotted pulling off those trends, other websites highlighting their trends are Ajio and abof but
they do not put a lot of focus on emphasizing the trends, whereas jabong being a more bigger company
than all three still doesn’t feature any edit or trend pages on its website.

• Product shoot

Koovs- 4-5 pictures of the merchandise, from all views, 1 with a zoomed version of the fabric and last
but most interesting is a 4-5 second video of a model’s ramp walk in the particular merchandise, the
video gives the true picture of the article and is very helpful for the customers.

41
Ajio has 4-5 pictures of the merchandise, from all views, 1 with a zoomed version of the fabric and an
extra feature is the option to buy the whole look shown in the product shoot i.e. shoes and accessories
which are paired up with the merchandise, it saves the customer from the hassle of searching the other
product they liked in the look altogether.
Abof- The VM is quiet simplistic but the product shoot has some unique features like ‘Try on feature’ in
which the customer can create an avatar matching his own body type and skin and make that avatar try
on the merchandise, though it is an interesting feature but it is not very viable as the whole ‘make your
own avatar’ is a time consuming process in which the customer needs to enter his/her body stats and
various other details which lead to time wastage and customers may not

42

really feel comfortable entering those details. Another feature is ‘style tip’ feature in which short 1 liner
tip is written on the product page like how to accessorize the product or where to wear it. Another
feature being ‘more like’ which show similar products and ‘pair it with’ feature which shows other
complementary products on the website.
The website has a basic product shoot with pictures in different angles, it has no innovative features
unlike its competitors.

43

• Website enrollment and first page-

Joining discount- koovs and Ajio give out the joining discount, these discounts help in increasing the
customer base of the website. Ajio and koovs talk about discounts on the front page itself on catchy
banners.

• Promotion strategies-

promotion plays an important role in ecommerce because it is one of the major tools to grow
customers, enhance customer retention and loyalty.

Koovs has a lot of activities going on throughout the year ranging from various kinds of sale depending
on the occasion like (Holi sale, Christmas sale etc.) to Instagram giveaways. Some unique promotion
strategies adopted by koovs are-
Koovsxyou- A customer who posts a picture on Instagram wearing koovs and uses hashtag “koovsxyou”
gets featured on the website.

Celebrity associations- Koovs keeps coming up with various activities which includes public figures, one
of the recent being “valentines with sonakshi” and a womens day weekly special edit including
contemporary public figures like Bani, Kaneez etc.
44

Ajio’s main strategy towards promotion is

mainly offering various discounts. Abof has a feature of refer a friend in which if a customer refers a
friend, he/she gets certain discount on their next purchase.

• Banners

Koovs has always had colorful banners with flashy colors like hot pinks, reds, yellows, these vibrant
banners attract attention of the customers towards their

message, banner placement plays a significant role in increasing the sale in a website. Whereas Tata cliq
has dull simple banners that catch no attention otherwise. Abof also uses right precise banners for its
website but abof usually keeps its banners light colored with fancy fonts, which helps in attracting
attention towards it. Ajio has the most perfect banners with huge fonts and right colors.
45
46

ANALYSIS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE

According to the survey conducted 27.3% of the population shop once a month, 13.6% shop once a
week and majority i.e. 56.8% don’t have a pattern of shopping. This is a prerequisite to understand the
nature of shopping habit amongst customers. The majority of them are frequent shoppers because 40%
shop at least once or more than once in a month, these numbers show the increasing shopping
frequency in today’s scenario and the reasons could be the increased spending capacity, advent of more
and more fashion retailers, both online and offline in the country and growth of the internet users
among tier 2,3 and 4 cities, which exposes them to all online fashion the country has got.
47

The objective of asking this question was to find out the percentage of current online shoppers, which is
48.8%, standalone stores or EBOs constitute 27.9%, MBO’s constituting 34.9% and the maximum people
shop from malls i.e. 76.6%, this being a multiple option type of question, exclusive figures couldn’t be
determined, but when each response was analyzed it was found that not even a single person shops
“only online”, online market in India doesn’t have an exclusive clientele right now.
The objective of asking this question was to find out the awareness rate of these new e-commerce
entrants in the market, being fairly new comers all these websites wish to expand their market, it is
essential to know if their target market is even aware of their existence.
The results clearly show that Koovs is a clear winner in creating brand awareness because 93% of the
survey takers are aware about koovs, followed by Ajio with 69.8%, followed by Abof with 60.5% and last
Tata cliq with 32.6%. Here the reason for maximum awareness of Koovs can be-

• Oldest in the market compared to the other three, Koovs has been in the market for last 6 years,
whereas Ajio, Abof and Tata cliq have been in the market for not more than 2 years.

• Excess promotions with social media, television and radio advertisements, collaborations with
famous designers etc.

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The objective of this question was to find out the percentage of people shopping from well-established
sites like jabong and myntra wrt to these new entrants in the market, the aim was to find out if people
chose these new entrants over the years old, trusted sites of the country.

The results show that Myntra being the legend in Indian fashion e-commerce, has the maximum
shoppers i.e. 60% of the total, surprisingly Koovs outruns other legend i.e. Jabong by 14%, Koovs has
48.8% of shoppers, which means almost half of the survey takers prefer koovs over other new entrants
and established websites, it shows that Koovs has been successful in capturing market with its offerings.

Other websites like Ajio and Abof had a low market share i.e. 14% and 7% respectively whereas Tata cliq
has the least market share, out of the total survey takers, none of them preferred to shop from Tata
Cliq.

14% said they wouldn’t shop from any of the above websites, reason being that some don’t shop online
at all or they prefer various other sites over the given sites. The other sites which were rather popular
apart from these websites are- Stalk Buy Love, Limeroad, Darveys.
49
The analysis states that a lot of survey takers haven’t shopped from any of the websites, but for those
who have, figures show-

• Koovs leads with the wide product variety followed by Ajio and then Abof. It offers a wide range
of fast fashion and high street fashion at affordable rates, it also aims at adding new styles daily. Ajio
also has a wide variety but the assortment is not fashion specific.

• Koovs also leads in the quality, offers & discounts, aesthetic appeal of the website and pricing.

• Koovs has an upper hand in these parameters as it believes in extreme promotion, Koovs puts
out promotions every second day.
50

The analysis shows that Koovs has had a first mover advantage and enjoys favoritism in dresses, shoes
and tops which are also called the core categories of Koovs, whereas in denims, Ajio and Koovs are
completely at par, and in accessories Koovs is leading just by a minor percentage. Abof and Tata cliq are
not performing well in

front of these other contenders.

The analysis shows that 32.6% people place importance on promotions and discounts while shopping
whereas 60.5% are neutral about promotions and discounts.
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MAJOR FINDINGS

• Koovs has a market leadership over its competitors as it has 93% rate of awareness, which also
includes tier3 and tier 4 cities, though the target market is tier 1 and tier 2 cities, but it is was observed
shoppers in tier 3 and tier 4 cities are much more than tier 1 and tier 2 cities.

• Koovs has an edge over other new entrants right now in majority of categories but Ajio being
just a year-old company is giving koovs a tough competition in terms of awareness product quality,
variety and pricing.

• Of all the new entrants, Tata cliq is has the least awareness, likeability and preferences over
koovs, Ajio and Abof.

• Myntra is the number 1 shopping destination for all the respondents.

• 14% of the respondents don’t prefer any of the websites, instead they prefer websites like
Stalkbuylove and Limeroad. These websites being new and small operation firms are still capable of
posing threat to these popular new entrants.
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SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• As proven in the research, koovs has a high popularity in tier3 and tier 4 cities, the company
must strive to enhance its supply chain and start deliveries in these few tier 3 and tier 4 cities like
Haldwani, Bareilly, Ferozabad, Chandausi as it is a potential untapped market for fast fashion e
commerce.

• Koovs collaborations are gaining a lot of popularity, the company must increase the number of
collaborations with designers as it helps in increasing the customer base to a high extent. Koovs can
collaborate with upcoming designers like Nishka Lulla, Arpita Mehta or if the company wishes to extend
towards red carpet looks it can collaborate with Abu Jani & Sandeep Khosla or Shantanu Nikhil.
53

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• www.koovs.com

• www.indiaretail.com

• www.ajio.com

• www.abof.com

• www.tatacliq.com

• www.timesofindia.com

• www.digitalerra.com

• www.onlinesellertips.com

• www.campaignindia.com
• www.marketingweek.com
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APPENDICES

Questionnaire-

Competitive analysis of new entrants in fashion e-commerce.

We the students of NIFT Mumbai are conducting a market survey as a part of our course curriculum to
get a customer perception on various leading fashion e-commerce websites.

• Name
• Gender

▪ -male

▪ -female

• Age

▪ -15-20

▪ -20-25

▪ -25-30

▪ -30-35

• Place you currently reside in

▪ -Tier 1

▪ -Tier 2

▪ -Tier 3

▪ -Tier 4

Q1. How frequently do you shop for fashion products (apparels, shoes, accessories, bags).
o -Once a month o -once a week

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o -quarterly

o -Not specific/randomly/no pattern.

Q2. Where do you prefer to shop your fashion needs from?

o Standalone stores, Exclusive brand outlets o Multi brand outlets

o Malls o Online

Q3. Which of the following sites are you aware of?

o Koovs

o Ajio o Abof

o Tata cliq

Q4. Which websites do you prefer to shop online for fashion needs?

o Jabong o Myntra o Koovs o Ajio o Abof

o Tata cliq o None o Other:

Q5. Which of the following websites do you prefer for the given parameters. *

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Q6. How important is promotional discount/offers for you to purchase something online
Q7. Which of the following websites do you prefer for the given products
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