Manish Kalra, Chief Business Officer, Craftsvilla, talks about the brand’s play with the ‘Indianness’ philosophy to make a connect with customers
Q] Your previous TVC spoke about most products available on your website, but your recent communication focuses only on apparel. Why the change in strategy?
The principle of any advertising campaign is that it needs to be sharp and focused with the message. We focused on ethnic women’s apparel in our recent campaign because we wanted to be able to attract female audiences to the site. After all women are mostly the decision makers in buying home décor, household products etc, the other categories we have on our website. So once we are successful in getting them to visit our site to buy apparel, they will automatically look at the rest of our offerings too.
Q] What kind of response did the campaign see and what percentage of your revenues come from women’s fashion now?
Almost 70% of the revenue comes from women’s fashion. The campaign has seen a huge response, there was almost 100% growth in traffic and conversions have increased overall. Right now the one category that attracts people to our website is women’s ethnic apparel because we have a huge selection of products sourced from across the country. But we have also seen home décor items, home furnishing and personal care products on our website take off considerably well.
Q] What was the marketing mix for this campaign and which medium was the focus of your ad spends?
We had a good mix in which TV takes the lead. We dedicated 60% of our spends to TV. It was followed by Digital, Print, OOH and Radio.
Q] What are the factors that differentiate you from competition?
We have a unique selection of products which you won’t find anywhere else. No one has focused on Indian crafts and ethnic products so much like Craftsvilla, and that is what differentiates us. When we interact with the users, they say they come to Craftsvilla to buy anything Indian or ethnic, as it’s a specialized site with products from across the country which are unique to certain regions like --chikan work from Lucknow. We have almost 30,000 sellers, 3.5 million unique products on Craftsvilla and get half a million visits everyday across app and web platforms.
Q] What are the challenges you are facing in the market?
The ethnic segment is largely nonstandardized. So, you don’t have the benefit of picking a branded product like Samsung in electronics. As the designs, fabric and work done on ethnic goods varies from product to product it becomes a difficult decision for the user. It is then based on how much information I am able to gather from the site, what the picture looks like, pricing etc. The non- standardization of products sometimes leads to not-so-high conversions of the traffic. Of course we have many loyal users, once they like the quality of the product we see them come back to our site very often. However the challenge is in getting users to our site and converting them to loyal customers.
Q] Are you going to be introducing customization options in ethnic apparel, because that’s one section where the customers don’t like to wear what someone else is wearing?
See, it may not be designed and customized for you. But there are three million products on Craftsvilla out of which 1.8 million comes under women’s fashion. This selection by virtue of so many designs itself is so differentiated that not many people would see each other wearing the same product at the same party. That’s also a benefit of having non-standardized products. If you buy a Nike t-shirt or a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, there are high chances of seeing someone else wear it. I was just telling someone in office that I have the same Nike t-shirt that he is wearing, a statement I would not have made if it was ethnic wear I was talking about.
Q] Which e-commerce player do you consider as competition?
Honestly, no player is completely focused on ethnic products except us. So I won’t say there is a direct mapped competition, but when it comes to ethnic apparel, everyone is trying to add a good collection to their portal, from Amazon to Flipkart to Myntra to Jabong to Voonik.
Q] All your products have some ethnic touch to it, barring the workout, massage and supplements section, why are they on Craftsvilla then?
So our philosophy has been that we will be an open market place. We let sellers list their products but if we feel they don’t connect with ethnic products or our philosophy, we ask them to deactivate the lists. In such a scenario, we get 10,000 daily uploads. It’s not a gated site.
Q] What kinds of trends do you see in the ethnic wear segment?
Indian women love ethnic wear especially because it is suited for their body types. But in metros you see a lot of women wearing western wear to work even as those in Tier II, Tier III cities prefer ethnic wear. So we have created a fusion wear with Palazzos and Kurtis which were not really existent three to four years ago. Designers have evolved and are taking into account the needs of the user and are creating lighter fabrics, which may not have so much embellishment like traditional ethnic wear would have. So products have evolved, cuts have evolved, and ethnic wear is becoming much more mainstream even in metro cities for office and casual wear properties which was not the case earlier.
Q] Most e-commerce sites have a variety of options be it western wear, sports, casual wear etc, do you think that puts Craftsvilla at a disadvantage because people will only come to you for a limited section of their wardrobe?
It’s a choice we have made. Ethnic wear by virtue of the scale and the popularity it has gained, became one of the big lines of business for us. We are constantly expanding the product categories like we have recently invested in a food company called ‘PlaceofOrigin’ and over the next few months will have a horizontal of ethnic products starting with foods. We will also have more selection in home décor as well as personal care organic products. So, soon you would be able to buy, ‘Sandesh’ from Calcutta, Rajasthani Razais etc. Anything which helps you connect back to the roots of Indianness, you would be able to find on Craftsvilla.
Q] Prior to joining Craftsvilla, you were associated with Amazon, which amongst the two brands has been more challenging to you as a marketer?
At Amazon, the learning was on a bigger scale as there were many more verticals, multiple channels, better budgets; which obviously added value to my current role in Craftsvilla. My role here is not limited to marketing, I handle everything from technology to product and marketing which helps me use insights from the various organizations that I worked in, to allow Craftsvilla offer a better customer experience. More challenging for me is my role at Craftsvilla by virtue of the fact that we are creating something from scratch. That’s much more exciting to me. Amazon however is an international brand, so that was a different challenge all together.
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