Shopping is an entirely different experience for many people. Some of us are just helpless brand shoppers. No matter what, we love to have that new pair of shoes or that new designer dress from Zara or that new Jewelry set but our budget does not always allow us to indulge into such shopping spree.
On the other hand, many of us own too many things and the lifetime of attraction to a particular pair of shoes or a dress has reduced significantly. The dress that we bought once with much excitement and could not to get our hands off of no more fascinates us and that barely used dress is lying somewhere in our closet. This is a pretty interesting problem.
We buy things that we don't want to use after a few times of partying. On the other hand, many of us can't afford brand shopping as frequently as we want.
This is where, Elanic, a Bangalore based startup, comes in and aims to disrupt used fashion industry for women.
Elanic Story
Elanic, an app based platform, let its users to buy and sell used clothes, shoes, accessories, jewelry, and handbags. Started back in 2014, the startup raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from venture capital firm Rebright Partners, TracxnLabs and angel investor Aneesh Reddy recently and plans to expand its operation.
There is a social stigma around using used cloths and people often don't feel comfortable using used fashion wears. Elanic, though, aims to fix this problem by making the transaction and communication between sellers and buyers smooth and simple. It lets people to create list of cloths they want to sell through the platform. A buyer can browse the app and select a particular item.
Once order is placed Elanic communicates with the seller, check the item [s] for quality, brand, hygiene, and if it meets the standard, they pack and ship it to the buyer. For every sale Elanic charge 25% commision of sale value.
The Market
India has a market for used cloths. According to a report, in 2013 India had imported $182 million worth of used cloths. This makes sense when we see local startups to take over the problem.
However, Elanic is not the only startup working in this space. There are almost half dozen startups operating in used fashion marketplace space. Although, Quikr and OLX are considered to be major competitors but there are startups like Revamp My Closet, Once Again, and Etashee working hard to get a share of this market.
Founded by Abhilash Narahari, Palkush Rai Chawla, and Aditi Rohan, Elanic has more than twelve thousand users now and only covers Bangalore. The startup plans to expand to more cities in next two years with more product categories. Elanic also launched a community meetup event early this month with a vision to build a community of its users.
Re-commerce or re-selling of used goods online is not new thing but an efficient marketplace that connects the both parties, seller and buyer, and employs more precise discovery and pricing mechanism is scarce. Elanic, with new funding, plans to build a platform that solves this inefficiency.
