Rage Coffee Is An Omnichannel Business From Day Zero: CEO Bharat Sethi

D2C coffee startup Rage Coffee has been an omnichannel business from day zero, its founder Bharat Sethi said at Inc42’s ‘The D2C Summit 3.0’ while emphasising the importance of omnichannel in D2C.

“From day zero, we’ve believed our business to be an omnichannel business. We never thought about the business as online only, D2C, distribution,” said Sethi in a fireside chat with actor and investor Rannvijay Singha, titled ‘Spilling The Beans: The Rage Coffee Journey From Upstart To Viral Brand’.

Singha is an early-stage angel investor in Rage Coffee and is also the brand ambassador of the startup. In March, the startup also brought Indian cricketer Virat Kohli as an investor and a brand ambassador.

Talking about the importance of the offline channel in the coffee business in India, Sethi said, “95% of our market sits offline. If we don’t track offline, there’s no business. D2C is just a way to build the brand and to understand the customer faster than anyone else.”

He also noted that there is nearly a 50:50 split in online and offline sales of Rage Coffee. “50:50 currently (offline to online sales ratio); we’ve been fully omnichannel since the day we started. I think it’s going to get skewed towards offline more now since the size of the company is such,” Sethi said responding to a question from the audience. 

Rage Coffee has a network of 150 distributors and over 5,000 sales points across the country. Its products are also available on all major ecommerce and quick-commerce platforms.

Rage Coffee is also close to profitability, according to the founder & CEO. “Becoming profitable is a quarter’s job for us because we have a very very lean setup,” Sethi said.

Several founders, including Veeba’s Viraj Bahl, The Moms Co.’s Malika Datt Sadani and Noise’s Gaurav Khatri, talked about the importance of omnichannel and offline commerce at ‘The D2C Summit 3.0’.

This also reflects the general trend and sentiment in the industry. Around 50% of D2C brands have an omnichannel sales model, while about 87% give high importance to omnichannel, as per an Inc42 survey.