YWC, a homebred athleisure brand backed by famous Indian international cricketer Yuvraj Singh, has gained notable pan-India traction in a short period of its inception. No doubt, the brand’s initial success can be largely attributed to its association with an influential celebrity; however, YWC is not only about a celeb’s standalone style statement and aspirational value, says YWC Founder & CEO Shazmeen Kara.
“As a brand, we are continuously expanding, be it points of sale or the products sold. In today’s day and age, for a brand to be able to sustain it’s essential to evolve,” she tells Apparel Resources in a candid tête-à-tête.
Excerpts from the interview:
Could you briefly tell us how well has YWC leveraged on the celebrity factor associated with it so far? And, is it enough to sustain a fashion brand in a long term? Unlike several other product categories, fashion changes a lot faster…
Yuvraj Singh is not just a name attached to the brand – YWC. The entire ideology and ethos of the brand stems from his DNA linking back to his foundation related work and is rooted in his personal journey to fight against all odds and never give up. His life motto – ‘Live, Dare, Inspire’ is visible across our key apparel SKUs. Additionally, YWC has a direct social connection, with sales from the brand contributing to Yuvraj’s foundation for cancer survivors – YouWeCan. All this makes YWC a desirable yet socially-rooted brand where people are not just buying a product but also into a way of thinking and participating in the social cause of raising cancer awareness.
Yuvraj never wanted YWC to be dependent only on him but exist as an independent athleisure brand. A lot of our sales today are due to our product design and the quality along with Yuvi’s involvement being an added attraction.
The brand started out as an online venture and later expanded into offline also. Both channels have their own pros and cons, how has this retail strategy played out for the brand?
Physical stores give a holistic approach to the brand and it is important to have both online and offline presence. Even though the Indian market is evolving towards e-commerce, many consumers still prefer to ‘touch, feel and try’ their products before buying. We have received an overwhelming response since the launch of YWC in 2016 and the collections we have in place via our online presence. Looking at the same, we felt the need to have a physical touch point to the brand and Varanasi came across as a unique choice. The city represents a beautiful amalgamation of old and new cultures, hence demands a contemporary fashion brands presence, still rooted in Indian culture.
YWC launched its standalone store in Varanasi last year and we now look forward to launching additional retail stores shortly in other cities as well. While physical presence is not mandatory, it adds a lot of value in terms of reach and engagement for the brand.
How many EBOs and SIS do you have, currently?
We are already available in over a hundred touch points via shop-in-shops and multi-brand outlets including Central stores pan-India. Our flagship standalone store in addition to this gives our offline strategy a new dimension. In the coming year, we plan to have additional standalone stores as well as expand our distribution efforts to encompass additional new cities. As the preference of the brand is growing in Tier II cities, we are trying to reach the same with our stores.
Athleisure as a style choice is getting popular in Tier II cities and we are keen to further expand our offline presence in such locations alongside key metros. We have also tied up with Central stores across India with a shop-in-shop model. The response so far from their Bengaluru and Hyderabad stores has been excellent.
YWC draws a lot from Yuvraj’s fashion and style sense. However, how do you keep up with the market demands and changing consumer tastes? Product design and development also is a dynamic process…
Yuvraj has a natural flair and inclination for fashion. He understands the industry and creates his own style. Right from the launch of YWC, the aim was to make it a viable fashion retail brand. We often partner with designers to come up with eclectic design collaborations like our past partnership with Shantanu & Nikhil. We also have an efficient design team on board that is constantly working towards creating styles that are comfortable yet chic.
We have a strong partnership with Suditi Industries which exclusively designs and manufactures the collection. The fabric is chosen according to the style of each garment. The collection itself has expanded manifold since its launch in 2016. We now have several SKUs in men’s, women’s, kids’ apparel and accessories. We have also recently introduced sports equipment as part of the label.
How do you select your manufacturing partner(s), are they open to giving small quantities?
We just have Suditi Industries as our manufacturing partner so quantity is never a question. We selected them as they are a reputed company with over 20 years of experience in garment manufacturing.
How often do you add new products to your store/website? Is the product collection similar in all regions or are local preferences like colour and style kept in mind when placing products?
Like any other fashion brand, we update our products seasonally. YWC also has a crux, a concept, an idea that we follow in creating our range. In our designs, we do follow global trends but also tweak and customise the products keeping in mind the taste of the Indian consumer. However, the Indian consumers’ mindset is becoming more adaptive to global trends.
What are your thoughts on the changing retail paradigm in India? What do you think you need to do to make YWC competitive with other athleisure brands?
While scaling retail presence in a saturated market like India is always a challenge, we have been blessed with very strong retail and manufacturing partners, right from the start. This has enabled us to have a strong presence in the market since the beginning of the brand. The brand comes with a big advantage of trust along with quality and being price competitive. Hence stands out to our retail partners as a worthy choice.
To have a deep dispersion in the online and offline retail chain like YWC within a span of almost a year is not easy. A key point that works in our favour is the availability of high-quality products at an economic cost. We understand the spending ability of our target audience and work accordingly.
What can you say about the journey so far and what are the learnings that you have gleaned from the same? What would be your growth strategy from this juncture? Any plans to go international?
It has been a gruelling and challenging journey. Today, we have the best retail partners, a great stream of online sales and a growing brand, all of which make me very proud to be an integral part of the YWC growth story. We are rapidly expanding our presence further. We look forward to having more stores in key retail locations via a mix of self-owned, multi-brand and shop-in-shop models.
Since we want to become a complete fashion retail brand across all key categories to give a holistic shopping experience both online and offline, we intend to have more self-owned stores across key high street and mall locations pan-India in the near future as well as consolidate our strategic partnerships already in place with Jabong, Myntra and Central before we move internationally.
The growth strategy primarily is to grasp new opportunities and evolving whilst staying true to the brand’s DNA.
