The story behind 'gift a saree'
This was December 2011, when I came to India for my cousin Priyanka’s wedding. I was sitting with my dad and brother at our family’s saree retail outlet and discussing how the business was going.
Before I dive into what we were discussing, let me give you a little bit of background on our business. Me and my brother are the third generation at this business. Our saree shop ‘Mor and Sons’ was started about 50 years ago by my grandfather. My father and his two brothers worked there for most of their life until all three brothers decided to go on separate paths. Dad decided to stick with Mor and Sons, as my uncles ventured out to different businesses. After school, I used to help out dad and uncles at the shop from the time I was 14 years old. I used to do various roles there from sales, to accounting, to stock management. I worked there until I left for Australia for further studies and since then I have been providing the business only strategic direction on major decisions. My younger brother joined the business after he finished his engineering and he has pretty much been running the show since then. Whenever I visit India, I take an update on the business and try to get a sense of how things are going.
Traditionally the way saree business has been done, we would purchase stock on a regular basis and sell that stock to potential customers that walk into the store. A percentage of customers that walk into the store buy sarees from us. Based on the quality of the stock and customer preferences, a percentage of stock that we purchase gets sold immediately, a percentage takes a while to sell and a percentage never gets sold. The stock that never gets sold is classified as ‘dead stock’.
'Dead stock' in the saree business is a huge problem. How dead stock is managed can make or break a business. This is stock that no one buys and over a period of time due to ware and tear and due to it gathering dust, becomes useless. Dead stock either sits on our shelves for years and never gets sold or gets sold at a loss for a fraction of its cost price. Over a period of time this stock gets written-off.
One of the reasons dead stock gets accumulated is due to bad stock purchasing decisions. The way stock is purchased is by forecasting sales. Due to the location of our outlet, most customers that walk in to the store are of an Islamic background. So all the Islamic festive seasons such as Ramzan and Islamic wedding season is our peak sales period and hence a demand to purchase stock then is higher. If in any given season the forecast goes wrong or the stock purchased does not have a high demand, then the percentage of dead stock for that year will be higher.
The other reason there is dead stock is due to the traditional Supply Chain followed in the industry. Sarees are made by the manufacturers, they are then send from the manufacturer to the wholesale via an agent, then from the wholesaler they are send to the retailer and from the retailer to the customer. Manufacturers sitting in entirely different states decide what gets supplied to the end consumer. Along the way, a lot of stock that the manufacturers produce never gets liked by the customers and never gets sold in the market. This stock becomes a form of waste and it sits on shelves of retailers like us. This form of supply chain also turns out expensive for the customer, as every middleman charges its margin before passing the saree on to the next stage.
The other reason there is waste in the industry is because there is not a lot of analytics and data. The industry is unorganised and most decisions in the sector are made based on gut and instinct.
These are all forms of ‘dead stock’/waste in the industry.
So, coming back to the conversation I was having in December 2011 with my dad and Himan. During that visit, I was seeing a wave of eCommerce companies starting in India. We were discussing about how the problem of dead stock is still inherent in the business. In the middle of that discussion, I connected dots and it was evident to me that eCommerce is going to be the way saree business is going to be done and problem of dead stock will be solved.
I immediately opened the conversation for starting an eCommerce business for sarees. I said, the way eCommerce is going to solve this problem is by firstly we can reverse the supply chain. We can put up a designs on the website, once a customer selects a design and pays for it, only then we will start making the saree through our own karigars (saree makers). Typically it takes 3 to 7 days to make saree that is ordered. And we deliver the saree to the customer’s location in an other 3 days. This way customers get access to all our sarees by a click of button on their computer and get their selected sarees delivered at their home within 10 days.
We benefit by making sarees only that the customers order. We transform from being just the saree retailer to owning the complete supply chain. We will make sarees through our own karigars and supply them to the customers.
Another way customers benefit is because by doing this we have eliminated all middle men. There are no wholesales, brokers or any other middle men. Only customers and us. So the savings that are generated by eliminating these middle men is directly passes to the customer.
How did the name ‘gift a saree’ come by?
After returning from India, one day I was watching Jab Tak Hain Jaan, staring the very popular Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan in one of the Australian cinemas. There is a scene in the movie where the actress of the movie Katrina Kaif receives a present from her mother. The present was a saree, wrapped in a beautiful box.
That was a light bulb moment for me. Diamonds are not for every occasion and not for everyone. Imagine giving a diamond ring to your mother-in-law on her birthday. You can’t, right? But, sarees can be a beautiful present on any occasion and to anyone.
'gift a saree' on a birthday, anniversary, festival or any other auspicious occasion to your mother, sister, girlfriend, wife or your neighbour's wife. ;)
I feel that the story behind ‘gift a saree’ has just begun so, all you readers, please wish us luck and spread the word for what we are trying to do.
