‘If I Had Amazon’s Resources, I Would Be 100 Times Bigger’
At 53, Lord Waheed Alli looks fitter than most CEOs in their thirties and certainly more dapper. It is in fact his great understanding of fashion that helped him build a great empire around it.
The former chairman of British online fashion retail giant Asos.com that grew from $14 million to a $9-billion company under his leadership within a span of 12 years, Lord Alli currently dons the role of executive chairman at online western fashion store KOOVS, which he joined in 2012.
His mission is to transform KOOVS from a deals website to one of India’s leading affordable western fashion destination. In an exclusive interview with Ruhail Amin, Lord Alli, on a recent visit to India, opens up on the unique challenges in the online fashion domain, his take on competition, and his vision for KOOVS.
Edited excerpts:
What was the inspiration behind starting KOOVS when you were already helming one of the biggest online fashion chains in the world?
What inspired KOOVS is that I set up an online fashion business called Asos with other people in the UK. It grew from a market cap of $14 million to $9 billion in a span of 12 years.
It was one of the most successful fashion companies and what it did is very simple. It took fashion forward in clothes and made that affordable for the younger generation. We did that and the business grew and grew. After 12 years, I thought to myself — I love it, but I want to leave. I wanted to set up in an economy that everyone is looking forward to, one that is growing, where young people are pushing forward. The choices in front of us were India and China. We discussed and zeroed in on India.
The prime motivation of setting up in India — apart from the fact that I look Indian, my heritage is Indian and I feel at home here — was the fact that this is an economy that is growing. Every issue here is about managing growth. There are many countries where your biggest issue is preserving your business and making sure you don’t go backwards. But here, everybody is looking forward. Everybody has got something to do. Everybody is doing things. All this makes it a lovely place to be in.
While India provides a great opportunity given the sheer market size, it is also becoming a very competitive place for e-commerce players. How do you plan to tackle competition?
People in our target audience are already talking about us. That is good for us. I love Amazon. I think Jeff Bezos is an extraordinary man. However, people don’t want to wear a dress that comes from someone who also sells garden equipment and toilet paper. That dress, no matter how nice, is never going to be about fashion. We have spent years making sure that we have a property online and that our logistics and service centres work. What differentiates you in the market is fashion. I would say that we have to help customers shop like Big Bazaar, but have a reputation of say Gucci.
We know we are there for fashion and 98 per cent discount is not going to live for long. It is going to kill businesses. Without doubt, since Amazon and Flipkart have come into the market, the climate they have created is one where everything is free, and the way they make media prices go up, they are making it impossible for other businesses to grow.
But at the same time they are growing the e-commerce sector, which is helping in creating better logistics and infrastructure. And that is great. But fighting each other and spending all of that money just to gain customers does not feel very good.
Where does India stand when it comes to global fashion trends?
India is driving those trends. If you look at the embroidery in Gucci, it’s clearly an Indian influence. India always had an influence when it comes to fashion. What is changing is that the Indian consumer is influencing contemporary fashion primarily in the way it is buying. Now India has the world’s largest Facebook community on the planet, so it is going to have certain influence when you are looking at fashion trends. In fact, India is going to feed into digital trends and that is going to change the way things are.
How is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data helping you leverage the online universe?
The analytics in e-commerce is incredibly sophisticated; much more so than the brick and mortar retails as well as other businesses. You can see what people are buying by the minute. You can immediately analyse the shifts. It’s a sophisticated operation.
We have spent almost no money on marketing in the last six months as this battle between Flipkart and Amazon has deluged the market. Everybody is offering discounts. Despite this heavy discounting, our full price sales have gone up by 11 per cent. Our brand recognition has gone up by 25 per cent. If I had Amazon’s resources, I would be 100 times bigger than I am today. I can’t fight in this marketplace to grow that fast very quickly. I will have to do it slowly and I have to be smarter. Technology is helping us do that.
What are the learnings from Asos that you are implementing at KOOVS?
I would say products and pricing are very important. Also factors such as technology and logistics are very important, and one has to get all that right.
The team that I work with, we have learnt for over 12 years. We are experts in these areas, which is why we spent first two years building what we needed to build, not expensively, before we started turning on the marketing.
