The Mom Store bucks trend during Covid-19 lockdown, sales grow 200 percent

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Jun 22, 2020

Bengaluru-based mother and baby fashion start-up The Mom Store is bucking the trend by flourishing during the coronavirus lockdown.
 
Despite the lockdown, the brand has witnessed a growth of 200 percent in orders and revenue. Its customer base has also increased by 200 percent. As compared to some of the established brands, which took a beating during the lockdown period, The Mom Store adopted a different approach and emerged stronger amid the Covid-19 crisis.
 
Higher brand discovery, coupled with pro-active customer service, helped the brand grow and achieve the unthinkable in Covid-19 times. Surbhi Bhatia, founder and CEO of The Mom Store, talks to FashionNetwork.com about how the brand managed to buck the trend and grow amid the Covid-19 lockdowns.
 

FashionNetwork.com: How did you manage to buck the trend and achieve growth amid the Covid-19 lockdowns? Can you share some numbers in terms of orders and revenue during this period?
 
Surbhi Bhatia: We took a couple of calls as a company, which helped us ride over the lockdown. First, we wanted to let our customers know that we are there for them. We did not close our website for orders. We put clear information for all our customers that all orders will be shipped post-lockdown restrictions are eased. As soon as lockdown restrictions for e-commerce were lifted we were ready with our safety, hygiene SOPs and protocols, and started shipping without wasting a single day.

Second, we also worked with our vendors to add essential products to our catalog like children's and adult masks, and cloth diapers, so that we can ensure business continuity if there was a second phase of lockdown. In addition to this, we were also in touch with all our vendors for our planned productions.
 
As a result of the above calls and also because no other brands were live during the lockdown and accepting orders, we saw an unprecedented rise in our sales and orders - close to 200 percent growth. Our number of orders went from 500 orders a week to 1500 orders. To give a perspective, the sales for our first quarter equals the entire sales for the last financial year. We have been able to maintain the upward tick in sales and customer trends and many of them have come back to us for repeat orders post-lockdown.
 
FNW: Which categories contributed the highest to this growth and which markets (metros, non-metros) helped you increase your customer base during this phase?
 
SB: The infant category contributed to the highest growth at this time. A lot of families in India, due to socio-cultural beliefs, don't do any infant shopping till babies are born. And so couples with babies due in April and May were in a panic situation, driving a surge in infant clothing and products. Our customer base is not restricted to Tier 1 and Tier 2, we get as many orders from Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns of India, and the same trend continued during the lockdown as well. Most of our customer acquisitions have been through digital marketing and social media.
 

FNW: The brand had plans to expand both offline and online over the coming five years. Is the plan still on or will you tweak the plan due to Covid-19? What is the growth plan?
 
SB: Any plans to go offline are now shelved. Covid-19 has led to a huge behavioural shift in consumers, as well as the industry. And thus, online e-commerce will continue to see a surge in demand in the foreseeable future.

Our growth plan continues to work hard and expand our categories. We will be expanding our online presence through video campaigns, ensuring a greater digital media footprint, and improving our website - both in terms of product variety and tech to allow customers to have the very best shopping experience.