We’re at edition 25 already – all this while we’ve been sharing strategies fueling the growth of India’s top D2C brands.
Now, we thought it’s time to shed some light into the segments in D2C that are growing at a 10X pace or faster.
Growing at a much faster pace in India is fast fashion.
Redseer reported – while traditional fashion saw a modest 6% growth in FY24, fast-fashion zipped ahead with 30-40% growth, compared to FY23.
Justice to the name, indeed!
At this rate, the fast-fashion industry is projected to soar to a staggering INR 415,000 Cr by FY31—a 5X growth!
Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
But what makes fast fashion such a buzzword? Unlike traditional fashion brands, fast-fashion brands understand that speed-to-market is the golden ticket to success
Why Fast Fashion Brands Are Obsessed With Speed-To-Market 🚀
Fast fashion isn’t just about keeping up with trends—it’s about dictating them. Brands like Zara have perfected the model, launching a new collection in as fast as 15 days, compared to the 6-9 months it takes for traditional brands.
While other brands are planning their next season, fast-fashion brands are already on their third collection of the year! (Pun Intended)
Let’s break down why:
🔷 Quick Adaptation to Trends: 50% of consumers demand fresh collections every 4-6 weeks. Fast-fashion brands that update their collections every 15-20 days have reported up to 30% higher revenue.
🔷 Minimising Deadstock: Fast-fashion brands, with their limited inventory model, are able to analyse fast what sells and what doesn’t. This reduces deadstock by a whopping 80%
🔷 Sell-Through Rates: Brands with a 15-day production cycle can sell 90% of their inventory at full price, compared to traditional brands that manage 60-70%. No reliance on markdowns here
🔷 Increased AOV: Customers spend 30-40% more on fresh collections versus off-season items. Fast-fashion drives repeat customers, boosting retention rates.
🔷 Lower Warehousing Costs: A McKinsey report reveals that fast-fashion brands cut warehousing costs by 20% due to shorter lead times.
A report even highlighted how fast fashion can launch over 50 collections annually, compared to the 2-3 collections of traditional brands.
Now, that’s insane efficiency!
Why Fast Fashion Is Becoming Mainstream 🌍
In India, D2C brands like Zudio, Snitch, and NewMe have taken the fast-fashion model and made it their own, growing over 70% year-on-year. These brands, with their quick design-to-market strategy are creating customer loyalty in record time.
But what truly sets fast fashion apart is how quickly brands can pivot.
They can ditch what doesn’t work, double down on what does, and keep their costs relatively low due to limited inventory and high sell-through rates.
Remember Edition 1 of The D2CX Newsletter? We had shared the growth playbook of Snitch.
Here are the insights from the 10X growth playbook for fast-fashion D2C brand Snitch, that we carefully curated in the first edition of The D2CX Newsletter
✔️ Affordable Fashion for the Masses: Snitch carved a niche in the mass-premium category, offering high-quality, trendy clothes at accessible prices. This strategy has fueled a consistent 30-35% QoQ growth for the past two years.
✔️ Staying Relevant: Snitch gauges customer response before scaling up production of any particular design, ensuring constantly updated collections.
✔️ Product Reselling Initiatives: Snitch allows customers to seamlessly resell their existing Snitch apparel for new ones. This way, Snitch has been able to offer discounts to existing customers and scaled its retention rates to about 50%
✔️ Affiliate Partnership With Customers: Customers could get reasonable discounts on Snitch products by simply posting a picture on their instagram stories and tagging the Snitch handle. This way Snitch has been able to turn customers into its brand ambassadors.
✔️ Instagram For The Win: Snitch has definitely cracked the Instagram game and drives massive traction there. They post viral content on the platform and have close to a million followers.
With this playbook, Snitch went from selling fabric scraps to becoming a company worth INR 400 Cr in 3 years!
Wrapping It Up
Fast fashion is undeniably redefining the fashion industry with its speed and efficiency.
Fast-fashion D2C brands from all parts of India are picking momentum and doing well. Take LittleBox for example- This brand from the NorthEast went 0 To INR 75 Cr within 2 years of launch!
The question is—for how long will fast-fashion continue as a trend? And will this pace of growth sustain!
What do you think?