Started in 2020, luggage and accessories maker Mokobara Lifestyle opened its first offline store in Bengaluru in May 2023. The brand is planning to open 25 stores in the next 18 months, targeting metro and tier 2 cities.
In a quick conversation with Medianews4u.com, Apoorv Sharma, Retail Head, Mokobara spoke about the expansion plans, funding and marketing strategies.
About the brand’s offline expansion…
Over the last few years, Mokobara has grown to a level where we are fairly confident in our online business and consumers. When we take a step back and look at the industry, for the premium price point a very big chunk of the sales comes from offline channels. A lot of lower price point brands have been able to move to online successfully. Retail for the brand was never a question of ‘if or not’, it was a question about ‘when’. We didn’t want to be behind the curve on this. Our original plan is to open five to six stores across the major metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru within the first year of offline launch.
We started with Bengaluru as the brand is headquartered there, it allows us greater control on the identity, operations etc. We have the next one coming in Indiranagar, Bengaluru. The third store will be opened in August in Bengaluru, then we will open our Delhi store.
By the end of FY25, we are targeting 25 stores across metros and tier 2 cities like Coimbatore and Lucknow, where we have huge potential.
Few weeks after the offline store launch, the sales numbers look promising and exciting for us.
About the core TG and customer acquisition…
From the age group perspective, the core TG of the brand is the millennials and older GenZ who want to have a point of view and want to stand out when it comes to luggage choices.
In terms of customer acquisition, we use existing channels and also run a lot of influencer campaigns online and in our offline store as well.
We are also running a lot of targeted campaigns in the store area. We are putting as much communication possible in the mall area, as we want to leverage traffic that comes to the mall and try to convert it.
On expansion and funding….
The offline expansion is funded by our business revenue and also from the funds we have raised earlier. We are planning to add additional funds and are chalking out plans for the same, and how we can optimise (acquisition) cost to a point where it works for us. These are all in the early stage, the funding for the first five stores will come from within the company.
On revenue, products and channels…
We started off as a luggage brand and within that we had only cabin luggage which we diversified into backpacks, wallets, and travel accessories. When it comes to backpacks, though it has been a recent category for us, over the last one and a half years we have been able to catch up in terms of volume and value. Accessories are a lower ticket size for Mokobara.
We are a travel lifestyle brand, and want to think beyond categories and focus on consumers and their convenience.
We are also prospecting hand bags as a category. We will have a comprehensive range of handbags by Diwali this year – we are looking at that to contribute significant revenue for us.
Market places and our own websites contribute 50:50 of our revenue.
We are looking to be present at MBOs as well. We are working towards building offline as a comprehensive channel for us. This will take time to scale up. In another couple of years, we are hoping that offline and online sales will be on par with each other.
On marketing plans…
As of now, our marketing strategy is online led. We are planning to take the digital route for our offline stores as well because it gives us a targeted focus on people. The traditional medium has a drawback of not being able to control the reach of geographies of the target audience.
Influencer marketing is big for us. It is something we do to target new audiences. What it allows us to do is to build a lot of brand awareness and get into the consideration of new audiences. Instagram is the most preferred digital channel for the brand right now.
At a point of time, when we have a number of stores as mentioned earlier, then we will look at traditional mediums for communication. Otherwise, utilisation won’t be justified.
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