According to latest reports, fashion e-tailer YepMe, which launched its first offline store earlier in January this year, has planned to open 400 stores by the end of this financial year to ramp up its sales.
The Gurgaon-based company has four stores in the suburban city and also has identified cities including Noida, Meerut, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ludhiana and Latur for expansion through franchise route.
Many other e-commerce players have expanded to offline stores in the past. This month itself, fashion e-commerce player Myntra announced that it would open its first offline store, in Bangalore or New Delhi, in the next three months.
Vivek Gaur, the CEO of YepMe said, “The four outlets in Gurgaon earn more than five times in sales for the e-tailer than what it earns from online sales in the city. Hence the company has figured that offline sales act as a multiplier to online sales, helping them to sell profitably.”
“We figured out that we can sell profitably and get a multiplier on online sales by having an offline presence, putting us in a different orbit altogether. By Diwali we plan to hit 75 to 100 outlets,” added Gaur.
Most of the stores in metros will be company owned and operated while those in tier II towns will be franchisee owned and operated, he stated. As per plans, it would also be allowing “anywhere returns” of products bought by customers across stores in different cities.
Apart from that, the shipments of goods bought from its website in smaller towns will be made directly from the stores rather than the company’s warehouse, provided the store has that inventory.
Last September, the company had reportedly raised $75 million from investors, led by Malaysian state fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad and existing investor Helion Advisors participating in the round.
