About The Company

Reliance Ecommerce (www.ajio.com ) is an initiative of Reliance Retail based in Bangalore. It aims to showcase curated fashion from India and world.

Highlights:

Sourcing, buying and category management of womenswear and menswear for ajio.com, an ecommerce platform of curated Fashion. Presently working on Indie concept (https://www.ajio.com/shop/indie), showcasing the textile art and craft from Indian Traditional Textiles.

Responsibilities

• Developing range architecture of the portfolio from Annual Operations Plan (AOP) taking into consideration sales trends and customer preferences drawing from my experience and knowledge of products, market and supplier capabilities. Range architecture has sales projections for the next season regarding volume, value, gross margin, Sell-through and discount for each of the categories (bricks) in the portfolio at each MRP price point.
• Owning 60% of the total sales of the portfolio by buying high potential items after analysing data, replenishing best sellers, launching new ranges and undertaking brand building exercises such as creating relevant content on the product description page ( PDP), labelling and relevant certification for products. In addition, undertaking discounting strategy so as to generate sales for the portfolio at optimum margins. Constantly studying the catalogue and giving relevant feedback to stakeholders regarding banner promotions, no of live items, catalogue quality, content quality and experience as a customer.
• Maintaining the stock at its optimal level by constantly analysing inventory and DOH (Days on Hand) at various granularities and dimensions for buying, focussing on buying from Sales or Return (SOR) vendors and buying specific to season after data analysis. Discounting after doing an ageing vs. DOH analysis keeping in time the lead time for ordering.
• Analysing data continually for the relevant customer and operations analytics such as Sales vs. inventory contribution, contribution per PLP view ( Product Landing Page), Customer frequency, recency and cohort analysis ( loyalty), basket size, option throughput and burn rate, discount analysis- trade and coupon, average selling price analysis, sales by cluster/vendor, gross margin analysis, category contribution dynamics over time, impressions/PDP/PLP/Bounce Rate and conversion analysis and returns analysis for selling and buying insights
• Sourcing for relevant products and on-boarding of the vendors of the vendors with mutually favourable Terms of Trade (TOT) using my sourcing and product experience. Sourced and ordered more than 7000 options from more than 100 vendors including manufacturers, exporters, traders and master craftsmen. Getting merchandise for almost all the important craft and textile clusters of the country including Kalamkari, Mangalgiri, Kanjivaram, Banarasi, Bagru, Ajrak, Kerala Kasavus, Pochampally and Orissa Ikat, Kutch, Chanderi, Maheshwari, Bagh, Amritsari Wool and Chikankari and Kolhapuri because of my relevant experience of the supplier dynamics of these clusters, sourcing experience and technical product knowledge. Merchandise include Garments, Sarees, Dupattas, Stoles and footwear and getting them for both menswear and womenswear.
• Guiding the content for the portfolio drawing from my knowledge of understanding the customer preference, keywords, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and the product.
• Ensuring quality of the products by providing specifications at the time of ordering with the reputed relevant vendors, training to the warehouse staff. Responsible for making quality guidelines for the vendors and QA to follow.

Velvetkart was a brand new start-up in the space of fashion ecommerce. Promising to provide curated collection, head-to-toe fashion and personalized styling, it had more than 8000 options on the website.

Highlights:

Sourcing, buying, digital marketing of the merchandise and coordinating IT operations specifically related to the development of website.

Started as an entrepreneur. Was not able to continue because of financial requirements needed for marketing and visibility.

Responsibilities

Sourcing and Quality

· Responsible for on-boarding of the vendors of the new platform.

· Sourced about 12000 options from 17 vendors.

· Responsible for providing size guides and size chart for the options on display.

· Responsible for making quality guidelines for the vendors to follow.

Digital Marketing

Responsible for promoting the website on social media platforms such as Facebook, blogger, google plus, twitter, Pinterest and such similar platform by writing engaging content.

About The Company

Utsav Fashion (www.utsavfashion.com) is the largest exporting ecommerce website of Indian Ethnic wear with more than 60,000 options live at any given time sourced from more than 600 vendors on its portal. It excels in providing excellent custom tailoring options to its consumers.

Highlights:

Reviewing merchandise from both quality and pricing perspective and sharing feedback with the stakeholders and training vendors, onsite banner promotions and site management. The job includes daily quality review and returns review and completing the feedback loop by including in the quality instructions for the buyers, vendors and quality team. It also includes weekly and monthly pricing analysis by products, categories and vendors. It also includes doing research on pricing across the Web, compiling critical pricing data, and making pricing recommendations to feed into category management.

Responsibilities

· Reviewing the output from quality team both from the perspective of Return to Vendor and Return from Customers and implementing the insights.

· Advising on the matters of sourcing, buying, measurement and contents of the merchandise for the web.

· Training vendors and buyers as regards the expected quality of the merchandise

· Responsible for onsite (banner) promotions so that the promotion calendar schedule is adhered to with right themes and sufficient quantity of merchandise to backup.

· Responsible for testing and identifying any gaps in terms of any user navigation experience.

· Responsible for analysing search and tagging the items meaningfully for better merchandise discovery.

· Giving inputs on the pricing from both supply and market perspective and implementing corrections, wherever necessary.

· Price benchmarking from absolute and competitive perspective and implementing the corrections.

Highlights:

Handling the sourcing, development and ordering of fabric and garments for three private labels (Akkriti, Rangmanch and Trishaa) in Indian Ethnic wear of Pantaloons.

Responsibilities

· Sourcing of Fabric and Garments for the private labels of Pantaloons

· Working with quality and evolving a system of inspection of ethnic wear.

· Identifying the best vendors in terms of capacities, capabilities and costs

· Vendor Development

· Cost Negotiations

· Tracking Orders and ensuring the delivery on time

Played key Role in making of the new systems related to development, receiving, sampling, quality control, allocation and dispatch for sourcing of Ethnic Wear for Pantaloons- Aditya Birala. Key role in getting autumn winter-13 Deliveries and development and allocation of Summer -14 Range

Highlights:

Managed directly a team of category heads and merchandisers for Women Indian, Women Western, Infants and Kids, Mens, Saris and Garment Accessories. Volume: 25 L. garment pieces and 50 L. meters of fabric every year.

Responsibilities:

· Product selection, sourcing and development as per the brief and price points advised by Fabindia product team.

· Strengthening the supplier base in the region.

· Development of clusters and artisans in the identified regions and crafts.

· Coordination with suppliers for timely production and dispatches.

· Inputs on Quality Control Implementation and monitoring of fabric quality.

· Ensuring adequate stock for order fulfilment to Fabindia.

· Negotiating the best prices with suppliers.

· Relationship management with all vendors, suppliers and artisans.

· Production planning to ensure that vendor capacities are appropriately utilized throughout the year.

Streamlined and restructured fabric and mens department. Got an ERP application developed for tracking of the order status. Sourced new fabric and garment vendors which diversified the vendor base and improved the margins. The company did 16 Cr. in the month of October 2012, the highest ever turnover in one month.

Responsibilities:

· Product Development and Buying of Saris, Stoles, Dupatta, Ethnic Footwear and Blouse Category.

· Achieving overall budgeted sales through judicious selection, allocation and scheduling the delivery of the product.

· Keeping a tab on department's sales trends; category wise, sub category wise, quality wise and key looks wise to aid in the selection of future products.

· Identifying Mark-ups that can be increased and working towards a reduction in the product costs in order to achieve the targeted margins.

· Keeping Close Tabs on the stock level at stores and quantities at the supplying Companies, analysis of slow movers to identity reason for slow sales and assisting the stores in rotation of slow movers.

· Range planning and sourcing, range creation and sampling, costing and production follow-up, quality assurance, setting the right price point, deciding re-order level of the category and planning promotions and schemes.

· Ensuring that critical parameters of the category viz: sales, margins, stock and OTB are as per budgeted targets.

Achieved 99.70% of the sales target in the year 2010-2011, category grew from 35 Cr. to 47 Cr. and attained highest growth rate than any other category with this base.

Responsibilities:

· Selection, Sourcing and Buying of Menswear, Womenswear and Kidswear fabric – Total buying Rs. 100 cr per year for tops and bottoms- both knits and wovens.

· Day to day Coordination with designers, Vendors and Mills for fabric selection and timely delivery of order.

· Price Negotiation to control costing of Garment Fabrics and assisting in maintaining higher gross profits for the categories.

· Supporting QC Manager in formulating and implementing QC guidelines, Spec-sheets and ensuring compliance by vendors.

· Activities related to sampling and product development of Fabrics.

· Improving teamwork with peers in the Core Selection Group of Fabindia (PSC) and Supplying companies.

Supported IT during testing of Modules in the ERP system and code creation.

· Interacted & worked closely with the designers, PD, technical, quality and merchandising teams internally & externally

· Total Volume Handled: 1.2 Cr. Meters of Fabric every year

Standardized and Frozen Quality Parameters of all (about 200) fabrics used by Fabindia.

Sourced more than 10 Lakhs meter of fabric at a price less than Rs. 40 per meter for Value for Money (VFM) Range of Fabindia in 2008-2009.

• Worked as Lecturer in Textile Technology teaching and managing related academic affairs such as curriculum development and placement coordination.

· Handled shift operations, looked after production and quality of a rotor spinning shed with a yarn production of about 45 Tonnes per day.

· Worked on the shop floor managing 108 high speed Tsudakoma airjet denim weaving machines. Consistently ran the shed at an installed efficiency of over 95%.

· Worked in Rs. 375 crore, 40 Rope Dyeing Project at Arvind Mills Limited with a capacity of 40 million meters of Rope Dyed Denim per year)