Based in New Delhi, Kama Ayurveda creates and sells ayurvedic beauty products which are made with herbal components, without including any form of fragrances or chemical compounds
Kama Ayurveda installation its first standalone store at Khan Market, Delhi in 2012, and with time, it has now increased its attain across the usa with over fifty nine standalone stores, and forty five save in keep formats, along its personal website (D2C) and partnering with ecommerce marketplace like Nykaa, Myntra, and Amazon among others.
Despite the growth and sales via online channels at some stage in the Covid-19 instances, Kama Ayurveda remains skeptical approximately pure-play D2C mode, and in the coming years, plans to installation bodily shops outdoor of India
The Indian personal care landscape has been abuzz with the advent of present and new-age ayurvedic startups throughout the country, such as the likes of Kama Ayurveda, Patanjali, AADAR, Cureveda, Forest Essentials, Just Herbs, Biotique, Kapiva, Mamaearth amongst others. The opposition is getting fierce as most people of these manufacturers have on-line presence, catering to a self-aware, wider set of net audience.
Also Read:- The 7 Deadly Sins of Entrepreneurship
These ayurvedic brands at the moment are stealing the highlight via realigning their enterprise fashions to healthy the existing-day client wishes, coupled with upward thrust inside the cognizance and demand for herbal and natural products arised due to Covid-19 pandemic.
While most of the people of manufacturers are deciding on the D2C course to cut thru the noise and get customer’s interest by means of branding their products as ‘the satisfactory,’ some of the mature ayurvedic manufacturers which depended on offline presence formerly, are actually following an omnichannel technique to amplify their reach.
For New Delhi-based Kama Ayurveda, the adventure started a long time ago but it best became a main venture with Covid-19. Kama Ayurveda creates and sells ayurvedic splendor merchandise which are made with herbal components, without adding any form of fragrances or chemicals.
Besides Kama Ayurveda, different D2C personal-care brands like Mamaearth, AADAR, Just Herbs and Forest Essentials also claimed to have similar value proposition, and what’s sets Kama Ayurveda from the relaxation is, perhaps, it’s early entry into the well being and personal marketplace space, wherein it constantly experimented to strike the proper chord with the ever-evolving purchasers.
Founded in 2002, Kama Ayurveda has come a protracted manner from where it all began. The company changed into founded by means of Vivek Sahni, Rajshree Pathy, Vikram Goyal and Dave Chang. It initially commenced with nine product strains across skin, hair, body and health, developed in partnership with the century vintage Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore. And it additionally started out through promoting institutionally and through retail to motel chains and offline stores which includes Shoppers Stop, Good Earth and others.
As time progressed, Kama Ayurveda in 2012, set up its first standalone shop at Khan Market, Delhi and then progressively increased its retail presence. Over the subsequent six years, the purpose become to get entrenched as a top class logo. In 2018, the agency raised INR a hundred Cr funding from Barcelona-based style and fragrance employer Puig, which allowed the company to unfold its wings and test the D2C waters.
“From here, we increased across an accelerated variety of hotels, spas, standalone stores, save-in-save formats, our ecommerce internet site and partner web sites,” Vivek Sahni, CEO and cofounder, informed CFT.
Over the years, Kama Ayurveda has accelerated its reach throughout the united states with over 59 standalone shops, and forty five save in store codecs. Its virtual presence has additionally spread from its very own website, to retailing on associate web sites which include Nykaa, Myntra, Amazon, among others. As a end result, the Kama Ayurveda team size has grown to an approximate of 340 personnel, however it nonetheless stays shy on the subject of doubling down on D2C notwithstanding the growth in stature and the capacity for achievement proven at some point of the Covid-19 lockdown.
Why Retail-Focussed Beauty Brand Kama Ayurveda Is Hesitant About Pure-Play D2C
No Plans For Pure-Play D2C
‘While women continue to be the number one purchasers, an increasing range of guys and teenagers also are becoming a enormous a part of our consumer base,” the cofounder brought, about how the marketplace has multiplied because the early days while the most important challenge become creating consciousness many of the middle goal group.
The company’s sales nearly grew 1.7X in FY19 to INR 104 Cr from about INR seventy three Cr in FY18 as this user base increased, but its expenses also grew with the aid of 1.7X from INR seventy seven Cr in FY18 to INR 109 in FY19. Kama’s losses widened to INR fifty four Cr from INR forty five Cr in FY18, consistent with the corporation’s trendy corporate filings on Tofler, as accessed with the aid of CFT.
Kama Ayurveda, which had a robust offline presence pre-Covid-19 instances, all through the lockdown phase, the closure of brick and mortar shops caused a large decline in client footfalls and consequently direct engagement. So it tackled this with the aid of increasing the engagement frequency on social media and focusing extra on domestic health thoughts and recommendations for its content. To engage with customers, it launched an online session with in-house ayurvedic beauty specialists, except influencer advertising and marketing via live activations, doctor chats, devoted Spotify playlists, facial yoga tips and ayurvedic practices.
Also Read:- TOP 10 CHATBOT DATASETS ASSISTING IN ML AND NLP PROJECTS
“With areas being deemed as orange and purple zones, we additionally had a difficult time pleasing deliveries. We started by way of realigning present activities, and shifting them on-line, via our internet site and social media systems,” he delivered.
Also, to make sure pending and new order deliveries, the agency partnered with third-birthday party logistics companies, which helped it song and satisfy orders quicker no matter the nature of the order i.E from its platform or for marketplaces
During the Covid-19 section, Kama Ayurveda’s physical stores have been more often than not close, and it heavily trusted on line channels for income. Amid this development, Sahni informed CFT that they do not have any plans to move-natural-play D2C brand. “Our version of partnering with online aggregators, stores, standalone stores and web sites has helped us cater to a bigger target audience, providing our customers with merchandise which might be herbal and time-tested,” he concluded.