Voonik makes course correction to focus on private labels

E-commerce marketplace Voonik, which is backed by the likes of Sequoia Capital, Times Internet and Beenext, is shifting to a fully private label business, according to an email accessed by Economic Times.

In an email sent to sellers, Voonik said it was moving to a single-brand retail model in the coming weeks and all products that sellers manufacture would be sold under the Voonik brand. Voonik will provide the tags for apparel and footwear products, it said.

Sujayath Ali, co-founder of Voonik, said the company wanted to to clock 50% of the sales from private labels by the end of the year and up to 90% by 2020. “But, we have already achieved 40% and its growing rapidly,” he said.

Founded in 2013 by Sujayath Ali and Navaneetha Krishnan, Voonik is a personal shopping app for women, which allows them to buy apparels from multiple stores, according to their body type, lifestyle and budget.

It gets a majority of its traffic from smaller towns and cities, and competes with social commerce fashion portal Limeroad, besides larger rivals such as Myntra, Jabong, Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

Between 2013 and 2016, the fashion retailer raised close to USD 27 million funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Times Internet, Seedfund, Beenos, BEENEXT, Parkwood Bespin, Tancom Investments and Kunal Shah. Earlier this year, it raised Rs 1.4 crore in a bridge round at a valuation of Rs 55.2 crore, led by Sequoia Capital.

The startup had been scaling down and downsizing its staff significantly. In November 2017, media reports said Voonik had asked more than 200 employees to resign. It clocked a revenue of Rs 117 crore for 2016-17, on a loss of Rs 130 crore, according to regulatory filings.