Sleep solutions brand Wakefit reported a 50% increase in festive season sales this year compared to 2023, benefitting from a growing trend of premiumisation in the category, according to Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, co-founder of Wakefit. The company’s 15-member data science team played a key role in preparing for peak season events, mapping consumer trends like premiumisation that could drive higher sales, Wakefit said.
Ramalingegowda said with eight years of operations under their belt, the firm relies on data science to make projections for demand and tweaks its supply chain to meet said demand. “What we learnt over the past year or so is that the premium (end of the product spectrum) is very lucrative (in terms of demand) and it is underserved. These customers (who opt for premium offerings) are well travelled, have steady jobs, have experienced quality products, and for them the right products were not there in the market by Indian brands,” Ramalingegowda explained.
Seeing the demand for premium products, the company beefed up its premium portfolio throughout the year across bed frames, sofas, and mattresses, so that during the festive season, it has a sizeable offering.
In addition to a 50% revenue spike, Wakefit saw a 5x increase in website traffic this festive season, though conversion rates and sales channel splits were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016 by Ramalingegowda and Ankit Garg, Wakefit has evolved to base its decisions on data analytics rather than intuition.
“We have a fairly large data science team so we are able to take a lot of data-based decisions. We go category by category, traffic source by traffic source and then put together plans for (matters like) what to produce, where do we need overtime, where to we need more raw materials, etc,” Ramalingegowda said.
Wakefit looks at categories through the maturity lens and decides the plan of action accordingly. For mature categories where the company has 12-18 months data to work with, the demand planning is done with a variance of 2%-5%. For these categories, it knows the benchmark of business-as-usual sales versus festive season sales, and so can effectively predict demand.
For non-mature categories, the company prepares inventories and warehousing capacity a little less than the demand, Ramalingegowda added.
Using data analytics, Wakefit began the preparations for this year’s festive season as early as July when it took a call on which products will be ready in time for the peak sale period, and how it will go about delivering the same, and wherever needed, provide installation.
The company has a full-stack asset heavy structure with 4 manufacturing units including a 600, 000 square feet facility in Hosur, 18 warehouses across the country, and 80 physical outlets. It also has a research and development division.
Ramalingegowda said that while it services a large number of pin codes for its bedding offerings (mattress and pillows), its furniture products are available in 30 cities so far.
“Furniture is currently present in 30 cities which form about 65% of the e-commerce market,” Ramalingegowda. Beyond these 30 cities, the company also works with delivery partners.
The company also plans to expand its furniture foot print to up to 35 cities by the end of this fiscal, but will take a measured approach to the expansion.
“We will add cities but slowly – maybe about 3-5 cities a year. These (the top) 30-35 cities also have enough depth to build a Rs 1000 crore furniture business,” Ramalingegowda added.
From: financialexpress
Financial News
