POPxo Ventures Into Ecommerce With Private Label Products

With $225 Mn Funding, Ex-Flipkartians B2B Online Marketplace Udaan Becomes India's Fastest Unicorn

SUMMARY

POPxo plans to offer well-priced, stylish products that will appeal to millennial women

POPxo is launching five debut collections: POP Woman, So Desi, Wanderlust, My POPxo, and Boss Woman

The company is also looking at expanding into fashion and beauty over the next few months

New Delhi-based digital media startup POPxo has now ventured into ecommerce with its private label merchandise. This will include products such as mugs, laptop bags, canvas pouches, and tote bags amongst others.

Priyanka Gill founded POPxo in March 2014 as a blog catering to the Indian diaspora.

“Millennial women are a large and under-served market, especially in the lifestyle products category. The POPxo ecommerce platform will create and sell product lines especially for them. We already know what appeals to women online — our private label is a natural extension. Content-Community-Commerce has always been our mission and with this launch, we solidify our position,” said Priyanka in an email interaction with Inc42.

POPxo has so far raised $11 Mn in funding from investors such as IDG Ventures India, Kalaari Capital, etc.

Every month, POPxo creates more than 2,000 pieces of content, that include 150 videos, more than 800 stories, and a large number of social media graphics.

POPxo’s Private Labels Offerings

As part of its debut in the ecommerce segment, POPxo will be offering merchandise in five segments. This includes:

POP Woman: POP woman is for a woman who knows her style and speaks her mind
So Desi: POPxo’s ‘So Desi’ collection is for someone who has a flair for drama
Wanderlust: The ‘Wanderlust’ collection is for the girl with a traveller’s heart. From summer tote bags to pretty notebooks, everything here reminds you to take a break
My POPxo: It’s POPxo’s signature line for its millions of fans and is all about pretty pastels and self-affirming thoughts
Boss Woman: Diaries, laptop sleeves, phone covers, everything here will remind you that you’re a #bosswoman all set to take on the world

The company is also looking at expanding into fashion and beauty over the next few months.

Shubham Jain, business head, ecommerce, at POPxo, said, “From design to production and distribution — we are running the entire process in-house and via our partnerships with service providers.”

With a monthly active user base of 17 Mn, the company claims to have over 80% female users spending over 3 Mn hours on the platform and digital content segment has over 200 Mn monthly engagements.

POPxo has partnered with over 250 brands to create branded content.

Vani Kola, managing director, Kalaari Capital who has earlier invested in POPxo said, “We believe that ecommerce is the most logical step for the company at this stage. The lifestyle products market is fragmented and women-centric, and POPxo’s private label can service this market really well through its rich data-driven personas and enhanced personalisation.”

Private Label Market In India

In the Indian beauty and wellness market, beauty ecommerce websites such as Nykaa, NewU, Purplle, etc, are leading the private label market with a focus exclusively on beauty and wellness products.

Inc42 had reported that online beauty marketplace Nykaa raised $24.45 Mn (INR 165 Cr) in a Series D funding round to fuel its plans towards expanding its offline presence from 17 stores currently to about 55 stores by FY19-end.

Recently, reports surfaced that Amazon India is planning to launch its own private label of beauty and personal care products. Prior to this, Myntra announced its plans to open beauty and wellness offline stores.

A RedSeer Consulting report suggested that the domestic online beauty and personal care market is expected to cross $3.5 Bn by 2022; at present, it stands at $300 Mn.