Chumbak Forays Into Apparel And Accessories, Launches Collection One

Accessories brand Chumbak has forayed into apparel market with launch of a new range under Collection One. The brand will enable stronger ties with ecommerce marketplaces and fashion discovery sites, as it expects higher uptake from them.

The brand is fostering partnership with major online marketplaces such as Myntra, Amazon, Jabong, Koovs and app-only fashion discovery properties like Raposo, Wooplr and Vonik.

Vivek Prabhakar, co-founder & CEO, Chumbak said, “Our design philosophy has constantly evolved to depict universality and enjoy a larger global appeal. We will now cater to the much larger lifestyle segment with our apparel and home collection. We have revamped our entire online web store keeping in mind the introduction of apparel as a category. He added, “In just one year, our online sales have increased from 15% to 30% of total sales.”

According to Vivek, at  present, roughly 70% of the sales come from Chumbak stores, and the remaining from Chumbak’s own website. However, with the launch of the product that is available in stores starting October 9, the proportion would alter, with larger chunk of the sales (60%) coming from online sales. Within the online sales, around 80% would come from marketplaces and rest 20% from their home site.

The brand has over 11 experience stores in major cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, and it plans to double the stores count in next one year.

The company was started in early 2010 by Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda, with the idea of bringing colorful souvenirs with India theme. By 2013, it diversified the portfolio from refrigerator magnets to phone/laptop cases, coffee mugs, accessories, home décor and now apparel for men and women. Till last year, it played in two large categories of accessory and home décor, which accounted for 40% and 60% revenue, respectively.  With Collection One, we expect it contribute to roughly 35% of the overall business.

Chumbak started with pop-up shops or kiosks around 2013, it scaled up to over 35-40 stores across 10 cities, largely located in malls and high footfall areas. But as the startup is it getting into building brands, it is slowly phasing out all the kiosks, reducing them to 10-12 stores only.

Currently, the brand competes with FabIndia, which is into both home décor and apparel, but its target customers are 70% women, within age group of 13-30 years.

Last year, it secured an undisclosed investment from Matrix Partners, and roughly $2Mn from SeedFund India in 2012. It is now looking to close the series C funding in next quarter of this fiscal (Jan-Feb-March). While Vivek declined to disclose the details of it, he shared the funding would come from new investors as well as existing ones.

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