This Hyderabad Based Startup Wants to Disrupt the Fashion Industry with Social Shopping

Getting ready for an occasion is a tough task. Right from arranging the right pair of jeans for your top to scouting out matching accessories to go with the look; it becomes quite tiresome. Oh, well! How can we forget the perfect pair of shoes to add to the zing? And what a task it is to purchase these ‘right’ kind of things from different shops? All the more hectic, isn’t it?

So to ease out most of your ‘matching’ problems, here comes Hyderabad based Violet Street. A unique website that allows you to discover fashion online through user generated looks, matching products and real-time shopping with friends.

The co-founder of this company, Nayan Kumar, a BITS grad, observed the shopping behaviour of consumers in a shopping mall where people generally came along with friends or family, they try out products, show it to their friends, pick matching products and made the purchase. “Why can’t online shopping be as exciting and fun as this?” he exclaims.

Violet Street gives some of the most amazing options to buy clothes and accessories to its users.

You can browse matching products and also select clothes for specific occasions. You can also shop with your friends, just like how it’s done in street shopping, where one would agree more to a friend before buying a dress or a pair of shoes.

“Just like offline shopping where shoppers take feedback from friends before buying” says Nayan.

Violet Street allows its users to share products and take feedback from their friends by simply dragging and dropping. A user’s Facebook friends who are on VioletStreet are added automatically to the user’s chat list. Also, if two users follow each other, they get to chat with each other and share products instantly.

The users can also create looks. Creating a Look is simple. All that they have to do is click on the list of available options for Layout. Select a Layout, which may have 3 boxes or more. Then they can pick up the dresses and matching accessories like shoes, jewelry, etc.  it’s a One-Shop destination for all.

Nayan met Ankur Gupta (co-founder) at Startup Leadership Program (SLP), Hyderabad and discussed the idea with him and then there was no looking back. With the market in its early stages and their complementary, they created the product themselves. In May 2014, they won the TiETechstock event at Hyderabad and were rewarded with INR 10 Lakh in seed funding.

The website was launched on 2nd June 2014.

With a 2000 Cr. market in India, currently the site receives more than 20,000 unique visitors every month. And more than 100 looks are created every day, which is increasing at 100% month-on-month.

Most of the startups face one major challenge in the beginning of their journey and that is recruiting people. The company too faced the same problem in hiring people due to lack of branding. However, this hasn’t stopped them from achieving their goals. Their aim is to become the Top Fashion Product Discovery Platform in India in two years and go global soon after that.

In the domestic market, some of players in the social fashion commerce space include Roposo.com, Fashupp.com and internationally there are sites like Polyvore, Wanelo, Fancy, Lyst etc. But what sets Violet Street apart from its competitors, is that it is arguably the only portal in India to support real time shopping with friends.  And it is the first portal in India to show matching products across all stores. Also, it allows users to choose from occasion based fashion Looks.

The startup plans to include men’s fashion and lifestyle products by the end of this year and to cross the milestone of a million users towards the end of next year. It also plans to break even by the end of year 2016.

This is part of our special series, In Focus: The Hyderabad Startup Ecosystem, where we cover the tech and startup ecosystem of the next upcoming startup hub, Hyderabad. 

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