Clovia's Secret
Online lingerie e-tailer Clovia has risen to the top with little capital.

- Nov 8, 2016,
- Updated Nov 8, 2016 5:08 PM IST
Pankaj Vermani got inducted into the business of lingerie early. His father ran a lingerie store in Meerut's Sadar Bazar, the town's primary market. Around 1994, when Vermani was in standard XII, his father mandated him to spend two hours every day in the shop. "It builds character," he told him. Mostly men came into the shop, whispered what their partners needed to his dad, who then diligently wrapped the products in a brown bag.
Clovia positioned itself at the lower end of the market - when it began in 2013, it started out by selling lingerie at the top-end (Rs 1,500-2,000 a bra) but quickly pivoted to the other end of the spectrum (Rs 300-1,000) where there were volumes. At the earlier price point, a customer bought just once a year. Now, she could afford four products at a time. Clovia initially targeted working women in the age bracket of 25 to 32. Now, it also focuses on a younger demographic, those between 18 and 24. "While they don't spend as much as those between 25 to 32 years, they shop more often. They have a much larger wardrobe - even her lingerie drawer is more crowded," Neha Kant says. "She also keeps two sizes because she knows she can gain weight or lose weight."
"So far, they have utilised just Rs 15 crore to reach where they are. It is not a small thing"
Volumes meant the need for good inventory management, and Clovia uses data science to predict demand, list products that move, and drop the ones that flop. This helps them both with the top line as well as the bottom line.
The company built a technology called 'Requirement Simulator'. It takes into account three factors - speed of sale of the test quantity that it launches, the feedback from customers once the test quantity starts getting delivered, and the feedback it gets from other sources such as mailers. A weighted average is arrived at based on these. "We can then decide if we should produce more of the same or not. Second, the algorithm tells us how much of it to make. Typically, we have 30 days of inventory at any point in time. It churns every month. For panties, our average inventory holding is 10 days. For bras, it is 40-45 days," Kant says.
Once, there was a brief that the company produced three times in a month. "For stuff where we already have the fabric and it's a repeat style, we have reproduced bras in 12 days and briefs in seven days. The industry standard is three months," she adds.
Apart from inventory management, data science is being used for geographical understanding of tastes. "The north-eastern sizing is very different from a Punjab sizing or from a south Indian sizing. The tastes are different, so are the colour choices. The fabrics are different because the seasons are different. We are trying to use data to understand what works best where," Vermani explains.
Lingerie is still a very fragmented market. Such understanding would help Clovia organise the unorganised - and maintain its lead.
Pankaj Vermani got inducted into the business of lingerie early. His father ran a lingerie store in Meerut's Sadar Bazar, the town's primary market. Around 1994, when Vermani was in standard XII, his father mandated him to spend two hours every day in the shop. "It builds character," he told him. Mostly men came into the shop, whispered what their partners needed to his dad, who then diligently wrapped the products in a brown bag.
Clovia positioned itself at the lower end of the market - when it began in 2013, it started out by selling lingerie at the top-end (Rs 1,500-2,000 a bra) but quickly pivoted to the other end of the spectrum (Rs 300-1,000) where there were volumes. At the earlier price point, a customer bought just once a year. Now, she could afford four products at a time. Clovia initially targeted working women in the age bracket of 25 to 32. Now, it also focuses on a younger demographic, those between 18 and 24. "While they don't spend as much as those between 25 to 32 years, they shop more often. They have a much larger wardrobe - even her lingerie drawer is more crowded," Neha Kant says. "She also keeps two sizes because she knows she can gain weight or lose weight."
"So far, they have utilised just Rs 15 crore to reach where they are. It is not a small thing"
Volumes meant the need for good inventory management, and Clovia uses data science to predict demand, list products that move, and drop the ones that flop. This helps them both with the top line as well as the bottom line.
The company built a technology called 'Requirement Simulator'. It takes into account three factors - speed of sale of the test quantity that it launches, the feedback from customers once the test quantity starts getting delivered, and the feedback it gets from other sources such as mailers. A weighted average is arrived at based on these. "We can then decide if we should produce more of the same or not. Second, the algorithm tells us how much of it to make. Typically, we have 30 days of inventory at any point in time. It churns every month. For panties, our average inventory holding is 10 days. For bras, it is 40-45 days," Kant says.
Once, there was a brief that the company produced three times in a month. "For stuff where we already have the fabric and it's a repeat style, we have reproduced bras in 12 days and briefs in seven days. The industry standard is three months," she adds.
Apart from inventory management, data science is being used for geographical understanding of tastes. "The north-eastern sizing is very different from a Punjab sizing or from a south Indian sizing. The tastes are different, so are the colour choices. The fabrics are different because the seasons are different. We are trying to use data to understand what works best where," Vermani explains.
Lingerie is still a very fragmented market. Such understanding would help Clovia organise the unorganised - and maintain its lead.