How a Conventional Offline Enterprise Went On-line: The Wishing Chair (2022)

At current, India’s furnishings and residential decor market is handsomely profitable, shaping as much as be a 40 billion USD enterprise by 2026. The market affords prospects quite a lot of designs that cater to regional and world tastes of shoppers in India.

However this wasn’t the case again in 2012. Again then, the market was severely restricted when it comes to product selection, and didn’t cater to prospects on the lookout for recent and distinctive designs. And that’s precisely when two ladies of their twenties, Viv & Ami, determined to take a plunge on this business and take issues into their very own fingers by beginning their decor enterprise, The Wishing Chair.

However, what made them take this determination?

Did they all the time need to begin a house decor enterprise? Nicely no, Viv & Ami simply needed to start out one thing of their very own. Their concepts ranged from a foot therapeutic massage enterprise to a make-up franchise, deciding on beginning a restaurant or a lounge to create a protected area for girls to hang around. Whereas engaged on this concept, they fell in love with the design course of as an alternative.

The realisation of their love for decor coincided with the hole available in the market for inexpensive handcrafted merchandise. Name it future or pure luck, however their enterprise concept, fueled with their decor ardour, discovered its good place available in the market.

So it started – Viv & Ami’s adventures with The Wishing Chair. No, there was no magical chair concerned, however there was ardour and the hope to create an inclusive, ‘pleased place’.

The Wishing Chair is a homegrown, women-led enterprise with a powerful Instagram following of 233k and counting. The enterprise is finishing a decade this 12 months. We interviewed the founders, Vivita Relan & Avneet Mann, to find out how their self-funded decor model went from being an offline crowd-puller to on-line success with Shopify.

Desk of contents

The way it started…

The Wishing Chair began their first offline retailer at a 1500-square-foot area in Shahpur Jat, Delhi. The optimistic response they acquired from their patrons enabled them to open their flagship retailer in Gurgaon, adopted by three extra shops by 2020.

Evidently, The Wishing Chair was having fun with an awesome offline presence. Not solely did they’ve 5 worthwhile shops, however they had been additionally constructing a loyal neighborhood by providing incentivised referrals and a weekly publication referred to as ‘The Delights of Distraction’.

Add to that, their epic experiential advertising and marketing efforts proper from organised artwork workshops referred to as ‘Crafternoons’, the place their design staff would educate inventive actions, to the entertaining gross sales occasion referred to as ‘A Spring Fling’ the place upto 40 shops collaborated to have interaction with one another’s audiences. The offline efforts garnered the anticipated outcomes – elevated footfall and buyer engagement.

Proper once they had began increasing, in 2020, The pandemic hit, and introduced a wave of uncertainty for offlines companies throughout the board. Laws modified quicker than per week lasted, and offline shops had been in a repair about whether or not they might open their shops or not. Many companies needed to rethink their existence and whether or not they might proceed their work. The Wishing Chair needed to shut down two of their 5 shops. And so they, together with many others, needed to adapt and undertake on-line as the best way ahead.

The Pivot to on-line

Although they’d a web based retailer since 2016, it wasn’t till the pandemic hit that it turned their focus space..

The founders recalled, “We had been dealing with a couple of points with the web site now and again, since even earlier than the pandemic. Again then, we didn’t actually suppose a lot of it.. However that wasn’t the expertise we might afford to present our prospects if we needed them to proceed with us on our journey on-line.. We realised we would have liked an internet site we might depend on.”

They had been looking out for options when their web site developer really helpful they check out Shopify.

Viv & Ami heeded their developer’s recommendation and moved to a Shopify retailer. Banking on a platform that didn’t allow them to down, they had been capable of enhance their on-line gross sales from 10% to 50% in a comparatively quick time span. “Since transferring to Shopify, we haven’t confronted any downtime points. And we’re now taking a look at redesigning and upgrading our on-line retailer with extra options and instruments by means of Shopify 2.0,” they shared.

So how are you going to transition from offline to on-line channels, like The Wishing Chair? Check out the important thing highlights from The Wishing Chair’s shift to on-line gross sales for cues.

5 key classes to make your on-line enterprise profitable

Listed here are 5 key classes which you can implement whereas transitioning to promoting on-line:

1. Create your web site on a dependable platform

It’s exhausting to think about a flourishing on-line enterprise and not using a credible web site.

That’s why it’s important to decide on the fitting platform on your on-line enterprise. Does that imply you’ll decide the proper platform from the get-go? Possibly not. Take into account The Wishing Chair, for example.

When The Wishing Chair moved to Magento, the transfer was not easy. However their web site appeared to be doing okay. Nevertheless, they quickly realised that the web site often skilled technical hiccups and the prices had been additionally larger than what they’d initially budgeted.

“There have been server failures sometimes, and there was not a lot we might do, particularly if the location went down at evening. However we did not suppose a lot of it, as a result of our offline enterprise was doing so effectively”.

When the pandemic hit, they determined to take their on-line presence severely. That’s once they moved to Shopify and The Wishing Chair hasn’t slowed down since then. Want inspiration on your Shopify retailer, check out our curated record of 50+ distinctive web sites constructed on Shopify.

2. High quality is your bread and cake

One of many the reason why The Wishing Chair stands out from different decor manufacturers is its customized merchandise. They’re fastidiously handcrafted to embody the model’s distinctive nature whereas giving a premium really feel.

Product high quality is paramount in your on-line promoting journey. Your viewers doesn’t have the luxurious of checking the merchandise in particular person and also you’re not bodily current to persuade them to purchase your merchandise both.

Subsequently, prioritise your product high quality straight from day one.

Delivering high quality merchandise on the proper worth will get you the preliminary set of shoppers that can make it easier to kick off gross sales and begin your on-line journey. As you constantly preserve the standard, you’ll achieve natural visitors through phrase of mouth suggestions and repeat prospects, leading to elevated gross sales and the flexibility to additional develop your model and set up your self as a good participant.

You may surprise how the model leveraged on-line phrase of mouth advertising and marketing to indicate off their merchandise? By means of social media! The Wishing Chair inspired its viewers to share their model expertise with the curated hashtag, #TWCMagic. This effort has been profitable in getting them a serious chunk of their gross sales.

High quality doesn’t imply it’s important to do every thing in-house from scratch. The Wishing Chair began with a self-funded, dropshipping mannequin the place they outsourced their manufacturing by fastidiously vetting distributors for high quality. Later, when the enterprise expanded, they constructed up the assets to create tailored merchandise in-house. They at the moment have a nine-person staff who supply, merchandise and craft distinctive decor gadgets you may solely discover on their on-line retailer.

Making high quality merchandise is not any straightforward process, however creating high quality merchandise is the place you have got full management, constructing belief and repeat buys. So, use it to your benefit by delivering the absolute best high quality to your prospects.

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3. Join along with your viewers

To attach along with your target market, you first need to seize their consideration. This may appear tough within the on-line world. So, how do you stand out and make your viewers discover you with so many different manufacturers on-line? You turn out to be a storyteller.

Nicely, not actually. The thought is to utilise storytelling to signify your model mission and values. Determine your model’s “Why” so that you’re extra than simply about ‘making income’. Convey your core values and model mission to your viewers, and allow them to know the way you’ll construct your small business round these values.

The Wishing Chair religiously abides by their values – ‘Handcrafted & Artisanal’, ‘Cruelty-free’, ‘Actual and Relatable’ and ‘Small is Lovely’. “We maintain our values sacred, and would by no means compromise on them in pursuit of senseless development,” they mentioned. They publish weekly newsletters the place they share their experiences and tales, and construct a neighborhood of like-minded people.

4. Don’t stick to at least one on-line gross sales channel

Your target market may very well be dispersed on varied social platforms and search engines like google. Do you suppose you can attain them simply by having an internet site?

You might be proper, you can not.

What you are able to do is to make use of exterior channels to publicise your model, promote your merchandise or direct the potential prospects to your web site. There are a selection of how you are able to do this – embedded CTAs, API integrations, or by merely mentioning a shortened URL hyperlink (equivalent to in your Instagram bio).

So, to turn out to be profitable in your on-line enterprise, set up your presence on a number of gross sales channels. We’re speaking about multichannel ecommerce. Multichannel ecommerce permits you to record and promote your merchandise on a couple of on-line platform.

One among The Wishing Chair’s principal gross sales turbines is Instagram. They get 30% of their web site visitors and 18% on-line income by means of their Instagram web page.

One other contributor to their on-line income is promoting on area of interest marketplaces like Jaypore, famend for promoting artisanal gadgets and apparels. On-line marketplaces can be found a dime a dozen, however discovering one that provides particular consideration to your class and provides a candy business deal is what you must all the time search for.

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5. Analyse the developments and adapt

A big advantage of being a web based enterprise is that you need to use digital instruments to assemble information about your target market, and extra importantly, analyse that information to achieve insights that make it easier to make higher choices.

You possibly can analyse market developments, streamline stock administration, automate your advertising and marketing efforts and monitor your viewers’s behaviour.

The Wishing Chair relied on Hotjar to trace their viewers behaviour on their Shopify retailer and enhance conversions. With this instrument, they’re able to establish the place their viewers’s consideration drops and acquire suggestions on their web site by means of pop-ups.

After all instruments are usually not the one method. Old skool nonetheless works. Make it some extent to browse the web for market developments and client behaviour reviews frequently.

For instance, The Wishing Chair seen a client report by Accenture that highlighted that 57% of customers would change manufacturers in the event that they didn’t provide quick and versatile supply options. And so, the Wishing Chair constructed up their capabilities and delivered seamless buyer expertise by means of hyperlocal supply tie-ups, in addition to a pan-India presence with a longtime accomplice.

Why go digital?

Vivita & Ami take pleasure in operating a digital enterprise as a result of every thing’s extra rewarding and less complicated—be it:

1. Buyer engagement
2. Order fulfilment
3. Stock administration, or
4. Executing gross sales enlargement methods
5. Sharper concentrating on

Want extra causes?

By 2025, there may very well be 220 million web shoppers in India. That’s a whopping 20% of our nation’s inhabitants buying on-line. That’s why establishing a web based enterprise isn’t simply an afterthought anymore.

With the digital area permitting you a wider viewers attain and automation instruments to make every thing simpler, the query is – why shouldn’t you have got an on-line enterprise?

To arrange your on-line retailer and make it successful like The Wishing Chair, begin with a 14 day free trial on Shopify.