Among other necessities for a woman to live a confident life, there are certain things we can’t afford to miss on. At the top of the list is ‘What we wear”. Apparels are indeed an important part of our lives, making us feel comfortable and confident, particularly lingerie and sleepwear. While the former boosts your confidence, the latter gives you a goodnight’s sleep, balancing the various aspects of life.

Initially, when e-commerce in itself was a new term, there was no lingerie and sleepwear brand online. Not only women had to visit offline stores but also had to compromise on hygiene. What was the solution to all this? Enters the Secret Wish.

About the brand: Secret Wish

Secret Wish is India’s leading lingerie and sleepwear brand, providing solutions to fashion fit issues while helping women feel confident and comfortable throughout the day.

With an aim to sell chic & girly lingerie in the finest quality for women across the nation, Secret Wish was founded by Sushant Puri in 2014. The founding team of the brand includes Chandan Singh and Roopkiran Kaur Sandhu who helped Sushant build the brand from scratch. Later on, Sushant’s elder brother, Prashant Puri, came into the business as co-founder and started managing Secret Wish.

Secret Wish provides a seamless and hassle-free shopping experience with their direct-to-customer business approach, making it affordable and feasible for people to purchase. They have multiple categories including, nightwear, bathrobe, swimwear, and lingerie, under the convenience of a single roof.

Bridging the gap between online and offline shopping

Female hygiene has always been a concern – given the fact many female-related issues are still not communicated openly. In the early era of the 2010s, buying lingerie openly was taboo. Not to mention, people were not much aware of female hygiene issues and didn’t understand the importance of supreme quality intimate wear. In fact for lingerie and sleepwear, there was a common notion of buying cheaper options.

Not only women used to compromise on the quality, but also the whole process of going to a local market and buying sleepwear and lingerie was hectic. “We realized this social issue in the year 2014 and noticed that there are no nightwear brands on online marketplaces. Moreover, women were buying from local markets. But we were determined to bridge that gap between offline and online, resulting in the inception of ‘Secret Wish’” said Prashant Puri.

“Cotton and hosiery comfort wear were being sold in the nooks of Gandhi Nagar – a small district in Delhi. I thought to take the whole idea online as there was not a single lingerie and sleepwear brand on marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, etc.” said Prashant.

Overcoming the D2C challenges

Direct-to-consumer is an approach in which a  business doesn’t rely on the middlemen and sells directly to the consumers. The D2C model is beneficial for consumers and manufacturers as it cut down the cost of an intermediary

Secret Wish was one of the first few brands who adopted this – now highly hyped – approach of selling products. But before any brand begins with this approach, it’s important to understand the relevance of online.

For a D2C brand, everything has to happen online. From managing accounts on marketplaces to managing traffic on the individual brandstore, a D2C brand has to keep a hawk’s eye to fuel the business. “Be it following the right standards to checking if the order dispatch is happening on time, it’s important to observe each and every detail keenly. So we had to go figure out these things while keeping a look at whether the proper quality is maintained or not,” he added. “Moreover, for a fashion brand especially in the sleepwear category, it’s essential to have a large assortment of collections. Mere 4-5 options don’t do the job, you have to maintain 40-50 different varieties in a single product category. But with growing demands, we became determined to improve our customers’ experience with valued services.”

Scaling business amid the Pandemic

The new normal times had been considered good for e-commerce businesses across the nation. To practice the mandatory guidelines issued by the government of India, people became more conscious and switched the traditional buying methods to online shopping. For Secret Wish, the unprecedented times have actually proven to be good – given the fact, people were forced to stay at home, increasing the need to wear comfortable clothes such as shorts, nightgowns, etc.

Talking about the trends amid the pandemic, Prashant highlighted the fact that people from both tier 1 and tier 2 cities came online, leading to a boost in their sales numbers. “More than 40% orders came from non-metro cities. Women who were initially dependent on offline stores, switched to online websites and marketplaces such as Myntra and Amazon, leading to an increase in online penetration.”

Finding expertise in ANS Commerce

Started their journey with ANS Commerce in 2017, Secret Wish became its full-stack partner. “Ever since we started with ANS Commerce we have seen an impressive boost in the sales. The rising penetration of online shopping and digital adoption post pandemic has increased our order volumes more than 200%, Prashant said.”

“Highlighting their warehousing and fulfilment solution, I would like to say that we have definitely saved the cost of warehousing and distribution channels. This money was used in brand visibility and marketing,” he said.

“Right from the moment we got associated with the team of ANS Commerce, we experienced incredible services. Be it their performance marketing solution or marketplace management or warehousing & fulfilment, I would definitely like to appreciate the entire team for their constant support,” Prashant said.

Since the website of Secret Wish is fully-designed and managed by ANS Commerce, to explain the experience of the brand in brandstore tech, he added, “Not to mention our website is fully-powered by Kartify – their brandstore tech. Kartify has optimized the performance of our online store as it loads faster and has actually helped us reduce the cart abandonment rate. Talking about their refund manager – an in-built feature of Kartify – it has helped us process refunds faster with more ease.”

“Moreover, we have efficiently overcome the challenge of account management and reconciliation on marketplaces with the help of ANS Commerce.”

“We look forward to continuing ANS Commerce’s e-commerce solutions and would recommend other D2C brands to seek their assistance as well.”

About ANS Commerce

ANS Commerce is India’s #1 full-stack e-commerce enabler helping brands sell online. We offer brandstore tech, performance marketing, marketplace management, and e-commerce warehousing & fulfilment.

We want our brand partners to focus on their brand and product and leave ‘all-things-e-commerce’ to us. We help brands acquire consumers, power brandstore, and jumpstart marketplace operations in no time. With us, brands can offer fast & reliable order fulfilment to your marketplace & brandstore consumers. Our extensive experience across product, e-commerce, retail, and marketing helps the brand achieve higher sales and stronger brand differentiation.

Having worked with 90+ established and challenger brands, we aim to help them sell on their brandstores along with 15+ marketplaces. ANS Commerce enumerates Jack & Jones, Vero Moda, Portico, Piramal, CEAT, Marico, Bath & Body Works, and ITC amongst its client partners. It is integrated with 60+ partners such as Fynd, Unicommerce, Netcore, Arvind, Delhivery, Increff, Razorpay, and many more to simplify e-commerce in India.

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