Alagrand.com - Regional Fashion eCommerce

Mitesh Shethwala is the founder of Alagrand.com - Gujarat's first fashion eCommerce portal for Regionally Famous Designers & Brands.

Here is an insightful and candid conversation - an eChai with Mitesh.

Tell us more about your team?

Founder: Mitesh Shethwala, He has been managing an IT company named “You Dedicated” since 2012 and actively involved in delivering nearly 60+ IT projects (Web & Mobile Apps) domestically and worldwide including India, Europe, Canada, USA etc. Being a Startup Founder he is actively involved in Strategic Product Development and Marketing activities. He is also a young Ahmedabad Global Shaper - 2015

Educational Qualification - Masters: M.B.A – Marketing, B.E. Information Technology

Alagrand Team consist of Web Developers, Graphic Designer, iOS Developer, Android Developer and Sales Executives.

How did you come up with the idea of 'Alagrand.com' ?

à I was looking at various online E-commerce company’s website and the growth of E-commerce in India and we found that India Still don’t do much regional shopping online. All we buy is nationally famous brands and also E-commerce Giants were only bringing Good Brand Names as their vendor Online. So we found the gap of Regional Fashion Shop and Designers to Bring them online and make it easy for them to sell Fashion Products with us.

What problem are you solving?

We are solving three Different Problems for three Stake Holders of Website

• Fashion Store – “High Customer Acquisition cost, Costlier website maintenance, Less technical in-house knowledge, Shipping Overhead, Focused on Physical Expansion.”
• Fashion Designers – “No bulk Production, High Marketing Cost, Less single e-commerce website visitors”
• Online Fashion Consumer – “Unavailability of Marketplace for Exclusive Regional Fashion Store, The current Fashion Marketplace are focused on Nationally Famous Brands, Costly Products, Less Product Comparison, Fake Deals, Retail shopping is Time consuming”

How does it work?

• Vendors: Vendors Can easily Add/Edit/Delete Products through Store Manager Option, Confirmed Orders are passed on to vendors directly through Store Manager which will be delivered either by Alagrand team Shipping Partners

• Customers: Customers can view the products through various filter options like price, brand, product specification, Customer can Purchase products online through COD or online payment methods

What is your target market?

All Indian Consumers which are in age group of 18 – 45 years (Both Male & Female).

What is your competitive advantage?

Our Advantages To Vendor

• Alagrand is more focused on making local BRANDS and DESIGNERS as partner for selling merchandise
• Alagrand will provide them easy to access and operate store manager option to manage their products easily (Product Innovation)
• We are giving Permanent URL (Alagrand.com/Brand) to all Brands to identify their stores on Alagrand.com

Our Advantages To consumer

• Realistic Deals and Favorable regional brands are more likely to sold online
• Large number of online products and a strong delivery value is our Forte.

How much time did it take you from conceptualization of 'your venture' to actually launching it in the market ?

11 Moths

What is your technology stack?

Front & Back Web Development: Microsoft Asp.Net 3.5 (100% Custom Tailored Website)

Database: SQL Server 2008, HTML – Fully Responsive Website (Bootstrap)

Mobile Application Development (In Progress)

Native Android & Native IOS Mobile Application Development for Google Play Store and Apple Store

How do you plan to market your product? What are your customer acquisition strategies?

In Early Stage we wish to market product offline by one to one interaction within community through various Promotional Events, Putting banners at our Brand Partner Stores, Social Media etc.

What is the revenue model of 'Alagrand.com' ?

We take certain Percentage on Successful Selling of Product online through our Vendor Partners, also we are providing additional chargeable services like Fulfillment of product, photo shoot etc.

What do you want to achieve from this? What is your larger goal or vision?

Our Larger vision is to Promote Digital India and Make in India Concept of Honorable Prime Minister and become the largest Fashion Product Selling Brand in India.

What sort of support and feedback are you looking from the community?

I am looking community to provide both positive, critical feedback about our website so that we can improve, connect me to more brands and designer so that we can have more quality products on website, and most importantly be early buyer to support our initiative if they find product suitable to their needs.