In conversation with Woman’s Era, Mrs. Sheetal Kapoor, Joint Managing Director, SHR Lifestyle Pvt. LTD. talk about their brand Shree—The Indian Avatar and their journey to success. 

• How was the brand SHREE born? Could you please share your journey and experience to success?

We identified a lack of an everyday, ethnic fashion brand in the textile and garment sector that catered to the modern Indian woman, who valued quality, comfort, convenience, and affordability. For this we thoroughly researched and studied the Indian market, key clothing requirements and preferences in terms of fabrics, color tones, styles and cuts that best suited the target customer base. We understood that most women, who wanted a chic design with quality and the right fit would mostly go to a tailor and would still not be able to get the results that they desired.

Thus, we decided to form a brand for the “women of today”. We did not know where to begin, so we started as an E-commerce platform selling ethnic wear on E-Bay in 2009. Shree made its presence in the markets in 2010, and steadily started to show growth in all major online marketplaces. We opened our first brick and mortar store in Todapur, New Delhi in 2015 and that was a major milestone for us. Since then, there has been no looking back. Today, we are 100 stores strong and growing within India as well as Internationally!

Our brand name “Shree” traces its origins to the Sanskrit word devi which means divine. We decided to name our brand “Shree—The Indian Avatar” because we believe that every woman is a “devi” and imbued in divinity. Deeply rooted in our rich Indian culture, ‘Devi’ is quintessentially the core of every Indian woman.

Ethnic wear, as we understand, is the essence of every Indian woman’s closet. And that’s where we come in. Our brand offers well-priced, comfortable, and everyday Indian ethnic wear to all kinds of women. 

• What is your expansion plan looking like for the immediate future?

We take pride in saying that we have come a long way and have achieved success in establishing our brand providing affordable yet comfortable and high-quality products. Just last month (November 2021) we launched our 100th store in Amritsar. Having established 100 brick and mortar stores pan-India and creating a strong digital presence here, we are now moving our focus to international markets. 

We have already launched the brand in UAE—The City Centre Sharjah store is already up and running and the City Centre Deira store will be launched by the end of December 2021. 

We have already started getting a team together to look after the business and marketing strategies in UAE. We are going all out and launching a UAE e-comm portal (shree.ae) specific to UAE this month (December 2021). 

It is important to highlight that Shree is the first “Made in India” brand that has gone international. 

Additionally, we have launched SHREE RETAIL 2.0 and have already begun incorporating this new concept in all our new stores starting with Bhel Chowk, Dehradun and Alpha Mall, Amritsar. This concept is in sync with the new branding of Shree which will be launched by Feb 2022. 

The new brand colors are signal yellow, sky blue, and fashion grey. These can be seen in the new retail concept at our new stores. The cultural nuance is depicted through motifs of genda, leaves and the Indian architecture.

• What does Brand Shree stand for?

Shree—The Indian Avataar is a “Made in India” brand inspired, sourced, designed, and created exclusively in India for the modern Indian woman, celebrating style, individuality, quality, and comfort. As a brand we stand for “women empowerment”. We understand that the modern Indian woman is constantly striving to maintain a perfect equilibrium between her social and professional life. We enable her to traverse effortlessly and stylishly between her personal and professional life, while keeping her fashion functionality in mind! The aim is to fill your wardrobe with apparel that is your go-to outfit every morning. 

Shree’s Design philosophy is simple—comfort and inclusiveness is priority. Our outfits celebrate every body type, age, etc. Our designers work with colors and fabrics that compliment the modern Indian woman keeping in mind the extreme weather conditions in the country.

• How do you go about planning your collections and designing the outfits?

We design our outfits in 2 large season specific collections—spring/summer and autumn/winter. We plan our season’s collection based on market research, competitor brand research and current trends. From this research forecast, we further create themes and stories within the larger seasonal collection of about 6+ ensembles each. 

Based on the set themes/stories, we design appropriate prints and then proceed to creating the silhouettes. Our customers and their requirements/needs form the backbone of our creativity and style/outfit creation. Additionally, we also analyze our previous collection to see the best-sellers and what worked, while of course keeping the cost of production in mind.  

• What is your business strategy going forward and how do you intend to make it sustainable?

Our future business strategy is led by our intent to focus on what creates value for our customers in the long run—a vision, we at Shree believe as being extremely important for any business to be successful. Our strategy at this point is to stay on the pulse of the customer, analyze and understand their fashion, functionality and convenience expectations and accordingly streamline our business to provide products that they are looking for. 

To achieve this technology adoption and digitalization will play a major role. We have extensively adopted this new transformation and have primped up all our online and digital platforms (WhatsApp, social media, Website, Emails, SMSs) to ensure that we communicate to our customers and vice versa at every customer touch point and at the same time have an easy and seamless interaction with our partners and other stakeholders. 

Additionally, we are also strengthening our internal processes, inventory management, and brand building initiatives. 

We conduct an increasing number of sales through our website, social media and WhatsApp and offer swift deliveries to our customers’ doorsteps. Our development team continuously sources new and sustainable raw materials and introduces new product lines.