Till some time ago, kids’ fashion meant a pinafore get dressed, ideally in purple, for girls and grey-blue-black for boys. Things have certainly modified. And that realisation stuck forty-year-old Rahul Anand, an MBA from Harvard Business School, who was dwelling in New York City lower back in 2012 when he noticed his pals in Mumbai who had become mother and father tour to NYC just to buy their babies. They might say it wasn’t an extravagance, the difference in fee and sheer accessibility of manufacturers justified the price of a flight to NYC! That’s while it struck Rahul that presenting access to specific and modern garments for kids may be a feasible business idea. Thus, Hopscotch became conceived.
Naturally, the following huge step changed into investment. Rahul turned into running as director of product control at Diapers.Com that had emerged as the number one on line child store inside the US and become later acquired via Amazon for $545MM. Rahul convinced his ex-boss and the leadership crew at Diapers.Com to invest earlier than he moved lower back domestic to provide form to Hopscotch.
Hopscotch is now India’s fastest growing youngsters style logo, a one-stop-destination for all kids wishes and is to be had across 1, three hundred towns.
Hopscotch provides an unbeatable cost proposition by using presenting dad and mom the modern-day worldwide fashion developments in garb, shoes, and accessories for their youngsters at unbeatable rate-factors. The company now launches approximately 500 new styles each day; a feat made feasible best via a crew that includes international designers across China, Thailand, India, and the US who music style weeks and couture traits to source and curate the first-rate of world children fashion developments in actual time. Ensuring a robust virtual presence coupled with a continuing client interface, Hopscotch products also are available across marketplaces like Amazon, Paytm & Myntra amongst others.
Headquartered in Mumbai and Shenzhen, Hopscotch, which is in the process of expanding into Bangalore, has crossed the five hundred crore valuation mark in phrases of sale in India. Moreover, the brand has crossed some noteworthy milestones inside the technique. According to Rahul, the logo has had strong natural growth from the early days itself.
Other milestones, says Rahul, include a robust set of buyers to support the aims, non-linear boom because the technology platform and facts engine hit an inflection point in 2017 permitting them to cater to customers across the country with diverse fashion possibilities and crossing 1M mothers as customers and seeing half of-of the commercial enterprise being generated from top 20 metros.
These milestones are amazing considering the market is developing at an excellent 30% YOY and is expected to attain $14B by using 2022. Rahul says that they don’t, but, accept as true with these research certainly capture the marketplace capability. “We’re seeing our average purchaser visit us 52 times a year – Zara, the most important in rapid-fashion is at 17 instances – and purchasing 9-12 instances a 12 months, so the behavioral patterns we’re seeing are very specific than what those research show. By leveraging information and generation as our center competencies, we’re able to introduce precise, stylish merchandise every few days to customers with varying flavor alternatives, and that’s driving phenomenal repeat purchases,” he adds.
According to Barclay’s, the kids’ fashion marketplace skilled an astounding 29.2% boom rate to attain $five.5B in 2018 and it’s far anticipated to attain $14B by 2022. Rahul says, “At Hopscotch, we goal to provide an unbeatable value proposition by supplying moms the present day worldwide head-to-toe style developments at unbeatable rate-factors. We launch 300x greater patterns than traditional retailers, that is 120,000 patterns in step with yr – imparting our customer’s plentiful variety coupled with the brand new developments in kids fashion.”
Hopscotch has had its hurdles to attain where it is now. The largest challenge he confronted, says Rahul, is accessing notable skills. “I see many founders and leadership teams obsess over fundraising. Fundraising is critical however most effective so that we will preserve to attract the first-rate engineers, product managers and facts-scientists,” he says.
