Clovia - One of the Leading and Fastest Growing Lingerie & Nightwear Shopping Brands in India,

Pankaj and Neha realised that there exists a major gap in intimate wear for women in India. This along with the desire to provide quality, fashionable and affordable lingerie to Indian women, drove them to start Clovia, an e-tailer for lingerie.

“Women across the country encounter awkwardness while buying lingerie from physical stores, manned by salesmen, who are more judgmental than helpful and there is a serious dearth of designs and styles,” says Pankaj. A desire to solve this problem, led the couple to disrupt the lingerie market with their technology start-up.

Here are excerpts from my riveting interview with Pankaj:

1. What gave you the idea for an online lingerie retailer?

Clovia, the lingerie brand, was my co-founder and wife, Neha’s idea. She had been researching on the gap in the Indian market in terms of inner wear for quite some time. While outerwear had evolved, innerwear was largely unaddressed and ignored. As the social stigmas are evaporating and the sensibilities are evolving, a whole new awareness about “underfashion” is becoming a reality. We realized that the lack of education on sizing, and complications in regular distribution of stocking multiple sizes and options had created an inefficient, low exposure market waiting to be disrupted.

Both of us had set up businesses from scratch. I’ve done two businesses in the past and Neha was one of the most seasoned e-commerce professionals in the ecosystem. So, we lost no time in working towards setting up the brand from scratch. We were lucky to be joined by our now co-founders Suman Chowdhury, a veteran lingerie designer and production specialist and Aditya, a tech wizard.

2. And how did you come up with the name 'Clovia'?

Clovia was earlier called MoodsOfCloe. It was later renamed Clovia for future strategy and product roadmap. Idea was to have a fun name of a girl, who was fashion conscious, wanted to pamper herself and was extremely aware of her wellbeing. So, now we look forward to each of our customers finding a little bit of Clovia in them!

3. What is your take on the assumption that the online retail market is overcrowded?

The online retail is just about warming up in India. Today we have under 50Mn online shoppers in India. The overall online retail is not even 1% in value of the overall retail in India. The speed at which it is growing is already a channel to reckon with. Online brings in democracy which gives everyone a fair playing ground. So there’s equal opportunity for every brand at one end and option for everyone to come up as a retailer at the other. However, for both its easier said than done. Being a e-retailer is tough, considering the amount of funds required to run a smart market place. On the other hand, building a brand is all about the product and clicking with the needs and aspirations of the consumers. So, if your product makes sense and customers are looking for you, buying your product, coming back for your product, that’s the barrier to entry for others you want to have!

4. What sets Clovia apart from other online fashion retailers and lingerie manufacturers?

Clovia is uniquely positioned as a full stack grounds up company where design, production, technology and sales guys come together to disrupt the existing lingerie space. We started by implementing one of the most efficient processes in the inner wear / sleepwear eco-system. We own the full value chain – from design to shipping; outsourcing only bits in the process and that too under strict supervision. This is blended with an extremely evolved technology backend. Our tech backend analyzes the consumer purchase patterns and feedback, and suggests what should be replenished and what should not. This helps us to understand which products, designs, and colours are a hit and which products have high satisfaction scores. With the help of this technology, Clovia is able to keep its range relevant to customers and also manage an efficient cash-flow for inventory management. The offline manufacturers, who struggle with large inventory build-ups, smaller set of offerings, passing huge percentages to regular distribution channels and slow feedbacks don’t stand a chance when it comes to the agility of our model.

5. What are the major challenges that you faced or are facing?

Our biggest challenge when we started was that customers didn’t understand bra sizing, especially the cup sizes. They were used to a salesperson appraising them visually and suggesting a size or simply buying by band sizes regardless of cup size. We had to educate women about how to size themselves, about sister cup sizes and their body shapes. We used our proprietary algorithm - ‘Clovia’s Fit Test’. We did extensive research and developed a test that asks a woman 5 questions about her body type and then, recommends the right bra. We have a very high customer satisfaction score here. We also gave customers an easy exchange and return policy which reduced their apprehensions. Today, bras contribute to over 55% of our overall sales.

6. What are the pros and cons of working with your spouse?

It’s turned out to be way easier than we expected. Both of us are hard working professionals and had managed a lot of people and responsibilities. So, collaboration came naturally to us. It’s fun most of the time as the trust is absolute and each one understands the strengths and weaknesses of the other. We also have a 2-year-old son and it always helps to chat about him once a day between stressful meetings to lighten up the mood and get back in the game. The downside is that work never stops…ever.

7. What can we expect to see in the future from Clovia (as a company) and from you (as an entrepreneur)?

India’s lingerie market is $3Bn (i.e. INR 18,000 Cr). Clovia has the team, the mix, the ethics, the product and the head start to be the leader in this space. There have been phases of apparel in this country that changed the way we dressed up and now, we believe is the time for lingerie. Clovia is the front-runner in capturing the customer mind share.

We are currently predominantly online and will continue to be because we believe and understand that this category with its width of products and sizes can only be serviced in full via this channel. But we will keep figuring out ways to delight our customers. We have recently launched 8 shop-in-shop outlets at various airports in the country and are expanding that network.

As an entrepreneur, the answer is no different. I will be putting in everything I have to take Clovia to a leadership position in the market. If the aspiration of the entrepreneur and his venture are separate, he really needs to internalize and align.

8. How has the consumer feedback been?

Clovia is disrupting the way lingerie is being made and sold in India. We are an amalgamation of fashion and technology, and know the importance of providing a great shopping experience to our consumers. At Clovia, it’s always the customer, who decides what should be created and in what quantities. Based on customer interest (selling patterns) and feedback, the system decides which design/style needs to be replenished and which should be discarded. Clovia’s design team spawns multiple styles of bras, briefs and night wears in the market in small quantities, sometimes almost 1/10th of standard industry minimum quantities.

Given that our user/consumer is the nucleus of all decisions we make, the response has been great. Almost 40% of our sales come in monthly from repeat guys (in absolute terms this number is growing extremely fast). We are working rigorously to scale our service levels for our end delivery operations to keep meeting the growing demands and monthly shipped orders.

9. Which has been the most rewarding moment in your journey of building Clovia? In 5 words, define the culture of Clovia?

In terms of workers, we set-up a huge ecosystem of mini-entrepreneurs, who were shop-floor level managers in large factories. We funded these people with initial capital to set-up their own factories and work exclusively with us. Today, these guys are together employing more than 250 people. Recently, a trade magazine got in touch with us about a story of a shop floor guy, who is now an entrepreneur making 8 times his previous salary and has also employed over 40 people. That night we slept really well.

Culture of Clovia – We are a bunch of Fun, Diligent, Customer-centric, Hungry, Fearless souls

10. Which is the one value in your firm that you are proud of and which value you still wish you could instil in your employees?

For us, customer is the master, king, god, everything. We falter, we make up, but we also know that no one else matters. We are there to serve the customer, understand his needs and address them. If she’s happy, we are in business and if she’s not, we have a problem that needs fixing.

In terms of instilling values, I keep reminding my team that entrepreneurship or employment are just states of mind. I have seen so many entrepreneurs behaving too cautiously and pleasing employees, while so many employees behave like fearless entrepreneurs. So, I tell them to think and behave like Clovia is their baby. The other is to make sure they enjoy their work. One of my IIT professors used to say “If you don’t love what you do, you will never excel in it.” And best thing is that falling in love with lingerie ain’t that hard ;)

11. What is the craziest thing you have done?

I run a lingerie brand with my WIFE. Isn’t that crazy enough for you???

12. If you had a week with unlimited money what would you do?
If I had unlimited money for a week, I’ll buy all the other lingerie brands out there. Will speed up our plans by at least a few years. Wouldn’t it? 

13. What are you afraid of?

Every entrepreneur is scared of only one thing – not having enough speed. We are progressing at breakneck speed, but we have to run faster and improve our foot print. This is an opportunity of a life time. We are at the right place, at the right time, with the right execution team and product. We couldn’t ask for a better start. One day wasted is almost 0.3% of the year gone. So, slowing down is what scares me.

14. Tell me something you wish you hadn't done.

In my past stints, I jumped into opportunities that were a little early for their time. That makes life a lot tougher, because then you have to work way harder to get to a certain stage than you ideally should. So, I always keep reminding myself that data /trends/patterns are everything. Follow your gut once these have been validated to a certain extent.