Lingerie e-tailer Clovia's net sales grow 61%, losses widen five-fold in FY16

Delhi-based Purple Panda Fashions Pvt Ltd, which runs online-first lingerie and sleepwear brand Clovia, registered a 61% increase in net sales for financial year ended March 2016 even as net losses widened five-fold.

According to data sourced from the Registrar of Companies (RoC) by VCCEdge, the research arm of News Corp VCCircle, Clovia's net sales stood at Rs 30 crore in FY16 versus Rs 18.6 crore in the previous year while net losses widened to Rs 9.5 crore in FY16 from Rs 1.7 crore in the year-ago period. Total expenditure increased to Rs 39.3 crore from Rs 20.3 crore in the previous year.

The higher costs are attributable to the company's branding efforts, shifting from a third-party-owned 2,500 sq ft warehouse to a company-operated 27,000 sq ft warehouse and its foray into the offline market, among other things, the RoC filings said.

Clovia's closest rival Zivame, run by Actoserba Active Wholesale Pvt Ltd, saw its FY16 net loss widen to Rs 54 crore from Rs 29.5 crore the year before, according to RoC data accessed by VCCEdge. It reported 38% growth in net sales at Rs 62.6 crore and a 57% jump in total expenses to Rs 118.8 crore during the period.

Formerly known as Cloe, Clovia was founded by husband-wife duo Neha Kant and Pankaj Vermani along with friends Suman Choudhry and Aditya Chaturvedi in 2013. The company was renamed in June 2015 in order to better align the name with its future strategy and product roadmap. It raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from IvyCap Ventures in June 2015.

The firm sells its own brand of lingerie and has ventured into the offline segment by setting up 'stop and shop' stores across a number of airports in the country.

Apart from the offline market, Clovia has been aggressively focusing on tier 2 and 3 cities as it tries to carve out a niche for itself in the Indian lingerie market. "Tier 2 and 3 cities are where the next wave of internet growth is happening. The aspiration for brands and the unavailability of high fashion products gives a perfect reason for brands with a strong web presence to reach these pockets," Vermani, chief executive of Clovia told Techcircle in an interaction last year.