STORIES

Two 21-year-old NIFT Students, Sindhuja K from Hyderabad and Praween KR from Bihar, founded a fashion brand Young Trendz (Selling T-Shirts) to meet the needs of fashion-loving generation. Their startup brand, within 5 days, sold up to 25000 units during Flipkart’s festive sale in 2017.

The duo was students when the idea of entrepreneurship strikes. In the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai, they were studying in the knitwear design course in seventh semester when they got an idea to start their own business on their own.

When ecommerce industry was booming in 2015, the duo made decision to be the part of the crowd and started Young Trendz, their official online clothing brand by investing Rs. 10 Lakh in September. They started selling on Amazon, Flipkart, PayTm Mall and Voonik and other online marketplaces in two months and introduced their own ecommerce portal.

They have seen very fast growth. They started offering freebies and customized T-shirts in college fests before their semester, under the brand of Young Trendz.

Sindhuja added, “In the beginning, we were taking just 10 orders per day. We collaborated with up to 100 colleges across India, along with IIMs and IITs and started offering T-shirts.”

Eventually, the startup started selling 1000 units per day and became Rs. 20 Cr. worth of brand with 0 VC financing.

Their Journey (Selling T-Shirts) from Chennai to Tirupur

With the growth of Young Trendz, seamless development of their product line was their focus which was possible only in Tirupur, which is the leading knitwear manufacturing destination in the country. The duo visited Tirupur for college projects with a confidence that they could manufacture and provide quality products. But they had language problems initially as they both were not from Tamil origin. However, their shift was beneficial for them when it comes to source raw material and product development.

Praween added, “We got the right workforce with best knowledge and skills in garment industry in Tirupur which was important for product development and got talented and highly skilled IT professionals for online operations from Coimbatore.” Shipments could be picked up by the courier services tied with the ecommerce sites. So, there was no problem in transportation.

Serving a Huge Audience Base

Young Trendz has been established, as the name suggests, with a focus on trending designs for 20-somethings, as their products have cool graphics and designs that youth can relate. Sindhuja added, “We always keep an eye on what’s trending in daily life and on social media for graphic inspiration. We have over 1.5 lakh products in competition to stay on the first page on online stores, including both domestic and international brands. So, there is no lack of tough competition.”

Now, Young Trendz has warehouses in Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu with over 30 people in a team. They are looking forward to open one more in West Bengal.

According to Sindhuja, these warehouses will help us to serve our customers across India. After West Bengal and other north-eastern states, they get most demand of clothing from Delhi and over 90% of shipments have been delivered before the given date.

Young Trendz was the first brand which has brought the concept of couple clothing, a well-known trend, to India all the way from Korea and China. They sold limited stocks as a trial in 2016 during Valentine’s Day season. They got great requests and response from the buyers. So they get 20% of sales of couple clothing. According to Sindhuja, quick delivery and implementing global trends are their USP. Currently, there are three designers working for Young Trendz and the brand also outsources ad campaign shoots and photo shoots.

According to Sindhuja, the brand offers unmatched quality with affordable price ranging from just Rs. 250 to Rs. 600 for college goers. They have over 3500 products to attract huge audience base in all online markets, which helps them garner over 70% of revenue. They refresh the collections two times a month and social followers always stay up to date with latest discounts and offers.

Praween added, “We are awarded among the top brands in Flipkart for performance during the Big Billon Days sale this year. During the sale, the response was so huge that it took just 5 days to sell over 25000 units.”