Shopping for a kid is regularly tedious, especially if it is a way of carting your youngsters from one store to another. At the top of the buying spree, nerves are frayed, and the whole circle of relatives is left in a horrific mood.
Though e-commerce marketplaces and department stores have brought approximately greater convenience, there’s not anything like touring one store and finding the whole thing your toddler needs right there.
Understanding this hole, Sharad Venkat and Ankur Agarwal founded Toonz Retail in 2010 in Bengaluru to assist dad and mom in locating the whole thing they need for their youngsters under one roof.
How it started
Sharad recalls when he and his wife spent their weekends strolling from store to some other collecting essentials for their infant. This was while the idea to open a one-stop keep destination for mother and father sprang up. He mentioned the plan with Ankur, who turned into the insecticides business at that point. Finding a valid business case within the concept, the two teamed up and shaped Toonz Retail.
Toonz Retail operates multi-logo youngsters’ retailers for all wishes and activities for kids aged zero-12 years. The stores nowadays bring anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 SKUs, including infant style, kids fashion, baby essentials, toys, add-ons, toddler care, and hard goods. Toonz Retail opened its first keep in Bengaluru in 2010, and now there are around 100 stores throughout India. The corporation became based with an initial investment of Rs 10 crore with the aid of Ankur Agarwal. The employer now statistics an annual turnover of Rs 100 crore.
Getting child couture right
On the initial days, Sharad says that they began out with certified merchandising with Disney, Dora, and Ben 10 characters in a 1,000 sqft store. However, as they desired to create a one-stop store for kids’ needs, they needed to make more significant further when it came to their product range.
No baby’s play
Running a company on Toonz Retail’s scale comes with its own set of demanding situations. “It is greater of a franchise-pushed business, and getting the proper set of companions for the franchisees is constantly a project,” says Sharad, including that the lease for the brick-and-mortar store poses a challenge too consistent with various markets and places. The brand’s WOW MOM and Superyoung are indexed on e-commerce structures like Amazon and Flipkart. While they also promote on their internet site, Sharad notes that they don’t seem aware of many online efforts as much as they do offline. Currently, the Toonz logo exports its clothing lines to international locations like Fiji, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea, besides having shops across 60 towns consisting of Kanpur, Lucknow, Patiala, Chennai, Jodhpur, and Solapur.
Future potentialities
For destiny, Toonz plans to enlarge its presence to ‘huge layout shops,’ with an individual consciousness on Tier II and III markets. It is also looking at increasing its presence in current towns and expanding in more significant needs. Beefing up the web presence and expanding product classes are on the cards as well.