2017 has been an eventful year for the entire fashion industry in India. The year was especially pivotal because it set aside the serious players from those Companies who took a more opportunistic approach to fashion. The industry in India is massive and growing at a rapid rate. However, new age fashion businesses require a lot more than your run of the mill approach to brand building.

We view trust as the foundation of the relationship with all our users. Transparency and honesty in any communication with customers has become paramount. Consumers today are incredibly knowledgeable of the latest trends, the quality of materials and the value of products and services. No longer can fashion businesses build a sustainable model around inflated prices, subpar materials and gimmicky marketing campaigns. Customers must trust your brand and believe in your Company’s vision before they truly become loyal consumers of your product and services.

It has also become incredibly important for fashion companies to start taking data driven decisions. This is not restricted just to marketing but across the span of the business. The ability to listen to your customers (at scale), process the several data points that you receive in feedback and implement it at every stage of the value chain has become tremendously important for any fashion business to be successful. Fashion is not top down anymore where trends are decided by a few people and then disseminated to customers. Today, consumers are a lot more educated, aware and empowered than ever before and do like to have a say in what they will eventually consume.

Technology has also begun playing an outsized role in the style and fashion industry. It has been an incredible driver of innovation and has enabled young, ambitious brands to reach out to consumers rapidly. Although companies in this space should focus entirely on fashion, it is important to take a very technology driven approach to your business. To fulfill our vision of being the stylist to every Indian, we rely heavily on incredibly intuitive technology that can make recommendations basis a complex set of relationships between products, brands and consumers. Our styling team spends as much time with our technology team as they do with our customers. Technology allows companies to process data and arrive at insights so specific to their customers and to their business that if used correctly, can provide them with a tremendous competitive advantage.

While 2017 was a defining year for the fashion industry in India, 2018 will be the year in which a number of companies and brands in the industry will have a tremendous opportunity to take their businesses to the next level. A combination of unique ideas, high quality products, vale driven pricing, flawless execution and intelligent use of technology will be key factors in determining each Company’s success in 2018. We at StyleCracker are excited to not just be the stylist to every Indian, but to also empower our consumers to be the best version of themselves. It is an exciting time to be a young, fast growing and deeply ambitious company in the fashion industry in India.