 "Online-only fashion brand Teesort eyes overseas foray")
"Currently, overseas sales happen through our Indian portal, which is less than one per cent. However, we are in the process of finalising a deal with Amazon for an overseas launch in the US and the UK. We are also talking to local partners in the Middle East for a launch there. This should help us achieve the 200 per cent growth that we are anticipating for the fiscal 2015-16," said Alok Agarwal, co-founder of Teesort.com.
Having pegged net sales of Rs 30 crore in 2014-15, Teesort, which claims to be the only profitable online-only fashion brand at 40 per cent gross margins, is aiming at net sales of Rs 100 crore for the fiscal 2015-16. According to Agarwal, who co-founded the company in 2010 with his brother Atul Agarwal in Delhi, Teesort has been growing at around 300 per cent year-on-year. "We are targeting to touch Rs 500 crore in three years," Agarwal said while adding that the company is also looking for strategic investors who are industry experts and can handhold the company for further growth.
Offering over 8,000 different products, the company is in the process of adding more categories. While 50 per cent of its sales comes from t-shirts, Teesort is looking to offer shirts, track pants, sweat shirts, jackets, and bottom wear such as jeans and trousers.
Commenting on the success of the fashion brand in recent times, Agarwal stated that the company's rate of repeat customers has been almost double than that of the online apparel retail industry. While repeat rates of Teesort hover at around 32 per cent, the industry average is about 18-19 per cent. "Moreover, the average ticket size in terms of value per customer has also gone up from Rs 300 earlier to now Rs 900-1000," he said.
Apart from its premium online-only menswear fashion brand, Teesort also owns TSX, a value-for money online-only brand of menswear.
Meanwhile, in order to keep abreast in terms of designs, Teesort has come up with a concept wherein it provides a platform for Indian and global designers and consumers to come together to create some of the best designs for t-shirts.
"The Teesort platform consists of designers who put their imagination and creativity on tees to be voted by customers, who rate and chose the best designs. Based on the results, the winning designs are printed and are made available for sale. T-shirts are printed using high quality screen-printing with the best range of quality colors. This not only gives designers recognition but also a basis to earn a steady flow of revenue which allows them keep earning from their designs long after they have submitted their design to the company," Agarwal added.
