BW Disrupt interacted with the founding team of CoolWinks to know more about their market opportunities and business model. Excerpts from the interview:
Brief us about your business model like how did the idea came to start and how does it work (step by step procedure)? India has over 450mn + people who need vision correction. The key problem which we identified was that of accessibility. Online gives you accessibility even at the remotest locations of the country. This was aided by the 3G/4G roll pan India and smartphones growth in India. This made us believes that the time is right to enter the segment and enable this huge base of people to get access to Quality Vision Care.
The ideation for perfect model/ USP/differentiators for the Indian market were worked upon in the late 2015. Once we knew what would be the Model, Key USP etc, we set the entire business in motion, of Hiring Talent, getting company incorporated etc. We went live for consumer sales towards the end of May 2016
What are the unique key points of your company?Wide collection of high-quality products with latest design and trends. Our user friendly website and easy interface provides a great experience to the consumer while shopping. At Coolwinks.com the shopper has all the options to pay from – COD, Credit/Debit card& wallet.
How are you different from the existing competitors?Or product collection differentiates us from the exiting players. Collection at Coolwinks.com is more fashion inclined and the quality of products in unmatched. We also provide various deals and offers to customers which makes Coolwinks.com much more affordable than other players in the market, adding to the overall user's experience
What is the funding status and monetization model? Coolwinks is a 100% owned entity of Essilor International. Our business model also includes commission from the retailers.
What challenges are you facing in running your business? We are here to break the clutter. But being a new entrant in the market and not having scale, we are unable to get good rates/ service level commitment from our last mile partners and our Merchant rates/Bank charges for accepting online payments is high as compared to existing players. Affiliates & banking partners/ alliances, offers from banks to our customers are one area we are still struggling to make our mark.
How has been the people responses so far? Consumers have really liked our products and offerings. We have acquired over 50,000 customers and are seeing a good amount of repeat buyers at such an early stage of the company life cycle.
What are the traction details (like users, app downloads & other achievements of the company)? Coolwinks.com is not available on app. We have crossed over 2 lac organic likes on Facebook. We have been awarded the website of the year award in shopping category.Plus our registered user base is over 70k.
How do you look at expansion?
We will be adding more product categories and we look forward to grow our product catalog. Strengthening our operations and tech team is our near future focus.
What are your marketing plans? We are looking forward to opt for ATL and BTL activations to market Coolwinks.com. We soon will be coming up with brand campaigns both on print and TVC
What have been the biggest learnings so far? Customer engagements are very critical and needs to be looked at from day: Collection/product catalog is to be kept up-to-date and needs to be changes frequently.
What is the market size and opportunity? 450 mn+ population of India needs vision correction, but only 150 mn+ have corrected themselves. This is where we have an opportunity to place Coolwinks.com as a catalyst in providing quality vision correction facility to people.
Indians still has to get to the mode of having different eye wear for different purpose. Today consumers have multiple footwear for multiple occasions. We want to get the market there for Eyewear also. Sunglasses can be worn by everyone, given how harmful UV rays are to the eyes. As more and more people understand the importance of taking care of Ones Eyes, we think the market is set for exponential growth.
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Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
