Weaving a Sustainable Fashion- Zuplr
“While big shot fashion retailers’ ramp up their production, imports and sourcing for new season to display them at their website and Shop floor, Zuplr is busy analyzing each new demand and customizing its new order.”
The fashion retail is totally trend- driven and with short-life-cycle and accelerating production cycles it is really a challenge to forecast approximate demands. This leads to heavy markdowns on the stuff that is not sold and stock-outs of the popular styles. These markdowns and stock-outs proves to be costly not only for the fashion retailers but also for the customers, who end up buying anything and the environment, as a lot of product get wasted. The demand driven model is an innovative approach to make the fashion retail more sustainable and offer significant business value to a range of fashion retailers.
Most fashion retailers are engaged in bulk purchases, ahead of time, to get the scale of economies and then resort to pushing the products to the consumers using a host of promotional strategies. The over-supply is driving consumers to buy in large numbers of and frequently replace them to keep up with changing trend. Zuplr, on the other hand is not captivated to encourage consumers to buy more rather it has an innovative agile business model where products are curated in response to the customer requirements and feedback. Zuplr has contemplated on the ideology that fashion is not just about having or wearing what everyone is wearing or having rather it is more about reflecting our own self in whatever we wear. The radical approach of Zuplr will definitely leave behind the traditional even the contemporary retailers who are amplifying appetite for fashion like an addiction driven by the impulse for having more and more.
Zuplr leverages technology, data analytics and human touch to deliver happiness in a pocket friendly manner. Instead of focusing on planning large inventories at a lower cost and promotional campaigns to increase sales, team Zuplr is focused about delivering satisfaction to each of its customer with their Zuplr box. A lot of care is taken while designing each Zuplr box. Each Zuplr box is premeditated to be unique containing apparels and accessories curated exclusively for each of its customer based on the data ‘pulled’ from the style log and the order history. Further, representative from Zuplr also talk t_o the customers to find out what they want and then accordingly tailor the products precisely to match this demand.
As against the popular fashion retailers who pre-commit more than 50% of their stock, Zuplr has a flexible demand- driven operating model where it pre-commits only about 20% percent of its sourcing in advance and the rest is in response to the demands, this allows it to significantly lower its inventory cost and constantly eliminate waste.
Procuring and curating stuff at a higher cost and selling products without offering discount or promotion at an affordable price is not easy. However, by avoiding wastage and delivering specially crafted Zuplr box, it is able to delight its customers.
“We are creating the products as per demand and not alluring the customers to buy anything at a lower price. Though, the margins are lower, it is acceptable as a lot of wastage is avoided and the customer is assisted in creating her own style statement by choosing the right style at right price.” – Zuplr
We often perceive that it is fashionable to buy and re-buy without much thought and it is innocuous too. However, we cannot be shielded from the consequences of our wasteful habits. It is a moral imperative upon us to shop responsibly and take fashion more seriously. By encouraging customers in getting engaged in mindful shopping and saving valuable resources, Zuplr is encouraging slow fashion over mass-produced fad and thus re-imagining what fashion can be.
Zuplr has planned to imbibe sustainability in each of its operation. It is set to launch a variety of initiatives like sustainable sourcing, packaging and customer awareness and engagement activities. The demand driven approach of Zuplr is really a step towards instigating change in the fashion retailing in India and will go a long way in motivating the whole industry to act responsibly towards the environment, society and economy at large.
