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Men are always considered superior. In every household, men run the house financially. But a lot of women have more potential and intelligence than men.
Now the time has changed and a lot of people are aware of women’s intellectual strengths. Women are now working members of the family and aid the family both financially and in unconditional care.
At present women are progressing with a light speed and also building business. Women entrepreneurs are piling up in India.
Women are coming up with fantastic ideas and revolutionizing the world with their skills.
Richa Kar a woman entrepreneur of India. She identified the discomfort and uneasy experience of women in the lingerie sectors.
Most of the women are being judged while buying their intimate wears. Lingerie sectors are underserved and have a huge gap.
Richa Kar identified the problem in this sector and came with an excellent idea. She desperately wanted to involve technology in the lingerie sector.
Zivame online lingerie store – largest brand in India
It is a lingerie-selling eCommerce store. Zivame was founded by Richa Kar on August 25, 2011.
Richa Kar just changed the experience of shopping for lingerie. Now the company Zivame have a lot of varieties and sizes of lingeries. Now a lot of women can easily deal with their activewear.
Zivame Lingeries comes in more than 5000 varieties and 100 plus sizes. It is regarded as India’s largest lingerie brand. Now women no more want comprises with sizes and quality.
Zivame company is valued at over 700 crores. The company will be growing at a faster pace and soon will be a unicorn. In Zivame a total of 294 employees are there.
How Zivame started by Richa Kar
To know about the story of Zivame then we have to look into Zivame founder Richkar’s earlier life.
Richa Kar early life
Richa Kar comes from a simple middle-class family. She was born on 17th July 1980 in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. She is the only daughter of the family.
Richa Kar’s father was an engineer at TATA Institue. Her mother was a housewife. She used to be very bold and intelligent from her early age.
She completed her graduation in BITS PILANI in 2002. Then she worked started her professional life. Richa Kar worked in Intergraph as a software analyst till 2004.
After in 2004, Richa Kar joined Oracle and in the same year left the job. She wanted to improve and enhance the knowledge in the business field. Then she deliberately joined MBA at NMIMS in 2005.
In 2007 Richa Kar after completing her MBA joined a company called Spencer’s. She has worked as a Brand commission manager. She never settled in a job and always try to experiment in her career.
Richa Kar is a very independent woman and never influenced by others. She always followed her passion. Again she left the job in 2010.
Further, she was working in SAP as a retail consultant. While working she gained insight knowledge about retailing. Always passionate about starting a new venture of her own.
Richa Kar had a lot of ideas to start up but none was set into action. She believes everything needs the right time to happen.
Foundation of Zivame
As Richa Kar was working as a retail consultant one of the client companies called Victoria Secret had gained a lot of revenue from online.
Then she started to research the lingerie market in India. She comes across a lot of fragmentation and underserved categories in this sector.
She understood the problems faced by women while buying lingerie like
- In most of the store’s men will be there in charge of lingerie products. So women find it awkward to deal with.
- Purchasing lingerie is considered a social embarrassment.
- Lack of good quality of products.
- Women have to settle with available lingerie sizes.
- A limited number of choices.
- Women couldn’t make open discussion of the lingerie at local stores.
- Judgment was made while shopping. Annoyed with the narrow-mindedness of the people.
Richa Kar noticed all problems faced by women and then decided to solve this problem.
When Richa Kar started to make a business plan for her idea. Then when she approached her friends she was disappointed by their negative impression.
Even in Richa Kar family demotivated her. Her mother also didn’t want her daughter an MBA grade to sell lingerie. Meanwhile, Richa Kar’s marriage was also been happened. Richa Kar’s husband’s name was Kedar Dhawan.
Finally, after discussing with her husband and friends Richa Kar started her business. With an initial investment of 30 lakhs, she started to sell lingerie online. Further, she also started to open offline stores called Zivame.
This is the foundation of the Zivame and how it started initially.
Zivame lingerie sales
Zivame gained a lot of attention from the women. Initially, it had seen a positive response. Then the company started to see a lot of women are buying lingerie on their site.
To increase the sales they lot of strategies follows
- Zivame opened more than 60 offline stores to engage with local audiences.
- Appointment of women staff was mandate in offline stores. So that women can easily open up and feel comfortable.
- The company started to engage with the audience through blogging.
- Packaging was at the best. Unconventional packing of lingerie.
- Zivame offers and discounts gained high customers.
- The company will take back its products on dissatisfactions. Instant refunds are available.
Zivame also organizes a campaign to spread awareness of lingerie products. The two successful campaign are
- BYOB: Bring Your old bra to this campaign Zivame sold new ones in exchange for older ones.
- Fit For all: In this campaign, women can try lingerie with more than 100 varieties of sizes and then purchase of their choice.
Zivame also increased its sales by adopting the Commission model. Where any store can sell Zivame lingerie and get a commission based on the sales.
To facilitate the local stores Zivame partnered with more than 800 delivery partners.
In this way, Zivame increased its sales and empowered a lot of women.
Investors of the company
Zivame attracted a lot of investors with its unique idea. A lot of investors actively participated in the investment
Zivame will be going to be the largest market of lingerie products. Market size is estimates at around $ 6billion by 2022. Zivame has a lot of challenges and wants to sustain competitions.
In this Zivame founder, Richa Kar solved the problems of women.
Brought a revolution in the lingerie sector. Then she will be the inspiration for a lot of upcoming women entrepreneurs. She also proved women can achieve and build successful businesses around the world.