Exclusive: Yepme to soon launch a Zara-like brand in India!

While H&M may be excited to dive into the Indian market and a number of marquee fashion brands may want to follow suit to cater to the fast growing brand conscious consumer market that's craving for more options, Indian online fashion retailer Yepme.com is busy trying to build a Zara-like brand of its own so that the new fashion hungry frats in India don't have to look up to the US and European companies for being in tune with the latest fashion trends.

Four years into the business, work is on silently in almost every arena at Yepme - on introducing new range in clothing to foraying into new segment, and raising and pushing big money into brand building (the most crucial bit)! There's special focus on the brand side because that's what it is aiming for - "to become the best fashion brand in India in the next three years" - as Vivek Gaur, the co-founder and CEO of Yepme, tells us.

Precisely, why Yepme has not only extended contract with their superstar face Shahrukh Khan, but it has also roped in south Indian heart-throb Tamanna, who became well known in the north recently after she set the box office on fire with Bahubali. The duo will be seen vouching for Yepme's brand new ethnic line in a short film that will flash on your screens from November 1. The timing of launch of ethnic collection has been kept just when the festive season would kick in.

"Apart from the ethnic collection, we are getting into three more distinct areas- premium party wear, active wear and inner wear. The plan is to bring party wear by end of this year (around December when the party spirits are high) and inner wear by Sept-Oct next year which is an altogether new segment for us," said Vivek, adding that the company is eyeing vertical growth and wants to go beyond just offering western casual wear to customers.

At the moment, Yepme is deriving 15-20 per cent benefits in the ongoing Big Billion Days and festive season sale on Flipkart and Amazon as a result of being positioned among famous brands like Benetton on the featured banners of e-commerce websites. It, however, aims to cash in more from its presence on these portals once its brand becomes salient.

By virtue of being an online fashion retailer and not an e-commerce website per say, Yepme is not competing with the likes of Snapdeal. "Unlike them, we don't spend money on discounting and schemes. We want customers to come to us not for cheap pricing or discounts but for the brand," says Vivek.

He explains:"On every product that I ship, I make 20-25 per cent margin. That pays for my fixed cost apart from covering the delivery and product cost. So all these costs are covered by way of selling. And all the money that I raise goes into advertising and building the brand. That's how I have a Shahrukh in my TV ads."

With so much investment in building the brand, Vivek aspires to make Yepme global by shaping it as a million dollar brand by 2020.

But there’s no hurry. The prime agenda is to first make India a profitable market for Yepme’s line of products. And that’s not a difficult task for an Indian company at this time. Rivals such as the likes of H&M have to manufacture in India and Bangladesh and ship products back to their country. But for an in house newbie like Yepme wanting to become a fashion brand in the country, the game is sort of easy, or so it seems for now.

With a huge textile base, large garment manufacturing base, technology as good as in the US, excellent resource from fashion institutes to create designs and IITians to analyse fashion trends and behavior- everything is under the same roof.

"We are tapping it. Once your home becomes a big market, there is an aspiration value for your product across countries," says Vivek.

In light of the above facts, why can't the next H&M or Zara be from India!