Zivame: Celebrating the Radiance of Women

The lingerie market has acquired a significant position in the apparel industry in recent years and it not only serves functional benefits, but has also solidified its status as a necessity for women. With online shopping becoming the status quo for a lot of Indian consumers, e-commerce has a big slice of the pie in almost all consumer goods. That’s where Zivame comes into the picture. It is India’s leading online retail lingerie store. From premium high-end brands and products, to affordable, everyday products, Zivame is a one-stop solution for the consumer, in the lingerie arena.

What’s on the Table?

Based out of Bangalore, Zivame started its online operations in 2011. The very idea of buying lingerie online was rather bizarre for Indian customers and was therefore, an area left unexplored by entrepreneurs. Zivame broke all these taboos and barriers and went on to become one of the leading online e-tail stores in India. They deliver to over 20,000 PIN Codes and over 5,00,000 women in India, selling close to one bra per minute! The founders, Richa Kar and Kapil Karekar, started with the idea that every woman should find her comfort zone, and feel confident and beautiful in it. They also wanted to offer women the comfort and the privacy to explore what is out there without the fear of awkwardness and judgement from people around them. The store features over 5000 different lingerie styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes.

During their initial years, the platform acted as an aggregator that sold popular Indian and international brands on their website. Now they have also launched their own brands using, among other things, the first-hand feedback they get from the customers. This has benefited them to both, create and curate great products that give consumers the experience and comfort they deserve.

Zivame offers an array of products such as lingerie in a truly wide variety of sizes, maternity wear, sportswear, shapewear, leisurewear, nightwear, and swimwear for women. Other than their house brands, Zivame and Rosaline, they also host other domestic and international brands like Enamor, Triumph, Lovable, Jockey, Amanté, Bw!tch, to name a few.

Indian Women’s Woes

Before launching Zivame, the founder of the company, Richa Kar did extensive research to understand the retail market. One surprising fact that lured her interest to the lingerie segment was that 80% of the women in India are unaware of their perfect bra size and wear the wrong sized bras. During her research, she realised that shopping for lingerie was more of a dreaded bottleneck for women than a rewarding and dear experience. That is when she decided to introduce online lingerie shopping to Indian women.

Over the years, Zivame has addressed some of the most common lingerie faux pas prevalent in India. The platform offers services like, ‘Fit Consultant’, ‘Bra Size Calculator’, ‘Discrete Packaging’, and much more. Now, Zivame has also opened its physical stores across 10 cities in India through which the lingerie shopping experience for women has become more comfortable.

Zivame has proprietary content on its website that educates women on how a perfect fit should look like. They also give their customers an experience to chat with a product expert in case of any difficulty while purchasing the product. Not only this, their blog, ‘Follow My Curves’ is also an inclusive safe space where they talk about the stories of all kinds of women and promote the ideas of body positivity.

Bankrolling Change

Zivame started with a total capital of 35 Lakhs and has grown enough over the years that they are now aiming to grab the largest share of the country’s booming online lingerie market.

During the first round of their funding, Zivame raised around $3 Million from IDG Ventures India and Kalaari Capital. In December 2015, during the second round of funding, the company raised around $6 Million from Unilazer Ventures, IDG Ventures India and Kalaari Capital. The company raised $40 Million in September 2016, from Khazanah Nasional, Zodius Capital, Unilazer Ventures, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital.

Zivame was valued at over $100 Million when it last raised capital from Khazanah and Zodius Capital. Another shareholder of Zivame is Unilazer Ventures, an investment company lead by Ronnie Screwvala.

The Online Lingerie Industry Roller-coaster

For the FY 2016–17, the company recorded its first-ever dip in revenue since its inception in 2011. They had net sales of ₹52.9 Crores, down about 15% from ₹62.6 Crores in the previous fiscal. The losses were recorded at ₹57.6 Crores for 2016–17, much wider than the ₹54.1 Crores in the year before that.

With 26 brand stores opened in the last 2–3 years, Zivame aims to open over 100 retail stores by the end of FY19. The company is focusing on ramping up the omnichannel to reclaim its lost ground and has set aside an investment amounting to ₹30–40 crores.

Future Plans

Over the years, Zivame has made a huge difference by truly understanding women’s needs. The company has successfully addressed the most common problems faced by women while buying lingerie. Purchasing intimate wear in a physical store can be an awkward and a hurried experience for many women in non-metropolitan India because of the embarrassment of having to explain to the male salespersons about the preferred styles and sizes. Even in the biggest stores in the metro cities, lingerie salespersons are incentivised for each sale and can therefore turn very aggressive in pushing their product onto the consumer, making lingerie shopping a harrowing experience. There is also a limited stock of sizes and styles available in local retail stores as they would like to stock up on only fast-moving products. Zivame has successfully been able to curb all these problems and give the customers an extremely private, convenient and pleasant lingerie shopping experience.

Being the leading e-tailer by a significant margin, their endeavour revolves around making every single lingerie shopping experience count. Their main goal is to empower women with confidence, offer them comfort and spoil all kinds of women with a million choices. They always keep reinventing their lingerie for all body shapes and sizes to make a woman feel beautiful in her own skin. They are encouraging and educating more and more women about the lingerie they wear and how they should change their wrong lingerie wearing patterns.

By the end of FY19, Zivame aims to open over 100 brick-and-mortar stores, where no physical purchase will be made, but a customer can walk in to have a personalised shopping experience to better understand their size, shape and order the kind of products that best suits them.

Zivame started off as an online marketplace with the very objective of making high-quality lingerie available for every woman in India. With continuous innovations in the last 6 years, not only has Zivame’s business increased up to fivefold, they have also taken huge leaps towards destigmatising lingerie shopping and women’s bodies in general. We say, kudos Zivame!