How Myntra's ex-COO is helping retailers decode fashion trends with new venture Stylumia

For long, fashion brands and e-tailers have been trying to predict fashion trends to ensure that every piece of apparel and fashion accessory flies off the shelf. However, most of the time, their calculations go awry and they are left with unsold inventory which they have to sell at a discounted price.

Now, former Myntra chief operating officer Ganesh Subramanian and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning researcher Ram Prakash H have joined hands to launch a data-driven technology firm, Stylumia Intelligence Technology Pvt. Ltd, to analyse fashion trends and help fashion brands take 'informed' decisions.

He has not only got his former employer, Myntra, as one of his clients, but fashion retailer Max Fashions has also signed up for the consumer analytics software. Altogether, 15 national and international e-tailers and fashion brands are on his client list.

The firm is currently bootstrapped and claims to have a subscription-based revenue model. "It is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product and clients pay as per the subscription. It is a yearly membership and clients can pay on an annual basis or go for a monthly package," says Ganesh Subramanian, founder and CEO, Stylumia.

However, the founders declined to divulge the exact details of the subscription package.

The science behind Stylumia

Subramanian quit Myntra in September last year and founded Stylumia the following month. The firm uses a software tool called 'Attrisense' which uses AI to analyse data sources such as images, user behaviour data, and textual descriptions on social media or implicit signals mined from the retail sites.

"From things such as what colour works or which patterns are in vogue, we can give insights based on the requirements of the clients," adds Prakash.

Subramanian adds that Stylumia is helping businesses make informed decisions such as what kind of apparel to stock, what is trending and who is the target audience.

"More than half of a fashion e-tailer's stocks is sold at discounts and there is a huge gap between demand and supply. We are trying to bridge this gap by giving insights based on algorithms," says Ganesh Subramanian, founder and CEO, Stylumia.

Globally, fashion brand Zara is known for its just-in-time operations strategy which allows it to deliver new clothes to its stores twice a week based on what is the latest fashion. Store managers send feedback to Zara's designers on what customers like, dislike, and what they are looking for twice a week. The company makes about 450 million items a year for its 1,770 stores in 86 countries.

Stylumia is now looking to make a similar operations model available for Indian fashion retailers. The startup claims that with its just-in-time market intelligence, full price sales could improve by 10-20%.

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