Helping fashionistas access clothing and designs by Malaika Arora & Sussanne Roshan: The Label Corp Story
Entrepreneurship is all about dedication and longing love for an idea. “Doing something I love everyday is the only reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur. A friend said to me that making money is the only reason he is into entrepreneurship but I maintain waking up and coming into to work to nurture and grow an idea with a team that is so passionate and demanding is what its all about to me,” says Preeta Sukhtankar, founder, The Label Corp. The Label Corp is the only retail brand in the online marketplace to introduce a unique tastemaker styled model where its celebrity creative directors bring you a curated assortment of products that are unique, functional and in keeping with worldwide trends and at affordable prices.
Offerings and early days of The Label Corp
Currently, the website offers two labels - The Home Label by Sussanne Roshan and The Closet Label by Malaika Arora Khan. While The Home Label showcases various home decor products such as wall decors, unique dining and bar sets, bath accessories, toys including several others, The Closet Label offers hand-picked clothing designs across categories like swim, lounge, play, sleep and essentials. “Malaika and Sussanne are the two 'tastemakers' who are working as creative directors on The Closet Label and The Home Label. We as a company adore their style and want our products to emulate it,” adds Preeta.
Interestingly, the initial founding team of The Label Corp was an all-women-team, with stylists, talent managers and editors who play roles of merchandisers, buyers and marketing heads. “This makes it an eclectic team with a completely new take on the business. We have now grudgingly begun to hire men :) in finance, operations and marketing but ever so slowly, says Preeta. She chuckles that the mindset isn't ‘feminist’ from any angle as her mentorship and guidance came solely from one of her close male friends who helped her to get this business off the ground with his sound advice being an entrepreneur himself.
On traction
At present, The Home Label does lesser transactions a day than The Closet Label but has a higher average order size and caters to a different set of people. On the latter, the startup has been seeing multiple orders among 18-25 year-olds, pan India, whereas on The Home Label it experiences a more evolved customer from tier I and II cities. “The interesting part is - over 35% of our customers shop across both sites,”adds Preeta. The average ticketsize at The Home Label is around Rs 3,000 - Rs 4,000 while The Closet Labels average ticketsize hovers around Rs 2,500.
The startup’s tastemakers guide its team on everything from whether a button should be placed on the cuff or the collar to if chevron is the right print for a cushion to which event they should partner with. “They are our Creative Directors in the true sense and treat the team as their own and vice versa. We pick our tastemakers carefully as they need to represent expertise, longevity and passion for the category – both ours had all the trappings and to know how involved they are you must come spend time behind-the-scenes at any of our photo or youtube video shoots,” adds Preeta. The company is looking to add one more label by December this year and will have 5 labels by the end of 2015. “Besides the current offering under the two labels we are in the process of adding many more SKUs to the existing labels and will have a revamped UI by the launch of the third label as well,” signs off Preeta.