Imagine buying clothes while surfing through your favourite social networking platform. E-commerce has come a long way and so has social networking platforms; and today, social commerce sites such as Voonik, Roposo and LimeRoad are balancing the biggest e-commerce marketplaces like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon by helping customers find the products they love instead of browsing through hundreds of products.Fashion discovery site Roposo, which has been in the news for securing $15 million from Tiger Global recently, claims to have a more than a million online active users and nearly five thousand brands for customers to choose from. Avinash Saxena, Co-founder Roposo, talks to Retailer Media about the social commerce phenomenon, the consumer response in the selfie-era and his expansion plans.
Tell us something about your brand, Roposo.
Roposo is India’s first fashion social network for women. It is a platform dedicated to fashion, wherein stories are created by users for users around fashion trends, styling tips, DIYs and Products are reviewed. It allows women to discover and shop new products and trends are liked, curated, personalised and updated every day from across online brands and e-commerce portals. It is a platform by the fashion lovers, for the fashion lovers. Relevant E-solutions is the company under which we operate Roposo.com and Giveter.com. Giveter.com is the first venture that we started in 2012 and is a gifting recommendation platform.
Where do you intend to utilise the funding the brand just received from Tiger Global?
We will invest these funds in building a stronger team of global standards, reinforcement of the technological infrastructure, enhancing and revamping the product. We will be increasing the number of brands associated with Roposo and will provide advanced features on our platform for the fashion lovers. We plan to double our team in one year.
How has been the response so far?
Presently, we have more than 1.25 million active users and it is growing at the rate of 100 per cent month on month. Around 7-8 lakh unique users join Roposo every month and each user enjoys around two hours per month on this unique destination for fashion. We offer over 5 million products from around 300 partner websites and 5,000 brands such as Vero Moda, ONLY, Biba, Playclan, W etc.
Our users have a common passion: fashion and belong to different walks of life. It includes celebrities like Sonakshi Sinha, Shilpa Shetty and Bipasha Basu, designers, stylists, bloggers and of course, the-girl-next-door.
The Selfie-Review is indeed a very interesting idea, how do you wish to capitalise on it in times to come?
Selfie Review is a unique feature introduced by Roposo, it helps women in making a purchase decision after it is worn and reviewed by a real user. This feature provides feedback to the brands and helps them understand the requirements of the consumer better. However, Roposo is a democratic platform and girls can review any product they would like to. Therefore, we do not plan to capitalise on this feature. In the coming months, though, we plan to introduce more interactive features and better the experience for our users on both the website and the mobile app.
How does it work? As in, what are the points of discussion before having a board on your site?
On Roposo, anyone can create a profile, post stories, share DIYs and showcase their sense of style. At Roposo, we believe that every woman has a unique style and an exclusive sense of fashion. We want to democratise the world of fashion by providing a platform to every woman who is a trendsetter and wants to showcase her style. These fashionistas get to inspire other women who share similar tastes and discover new trends themselves. Therefore, the final power rests in the hands of trendsetters, who could be anyone, from the girl next door to a Bollywood celebrity.
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