Festive season pricing not a race to the bottom: Libas’ Nisha Khatri

Khatri states that unlike traditional ethnic clothing brands, Libas does not produce seasonal collections. Instead, its ultra-fast model involves launching a new campaign every month.

Edited excerpts:

How do you plan to market this holiday and wedding season? Will being in Libas be big for you?

We do not consider the wedding and festive season as a busy season for us. This is the time for us to create lifetime value with our customers. We collect more data and track customer intent much earlier, well before the festive season begins. Unlike ethnic clothing brands, we do not produce spring-summer or seasonal collections. As an ultra-fast fashion brand, we launch a new campaign every month.

So what are you aiming for this festive season?

We aim to increase our customer acquisition rates by 30% with extremely agile stock planning. We’re doubling down on localized marketing campaigns. Most importantly, we aim to move away from heavy discounts during the festive season to a strategic approach focused on customer retention. This year’s holiday prices are not a race to the bottom. We have created a three-tiered pricing table for our loyal customer base, ranging from low-priced capsules to high-priced special packages. The lifetime value of our already loyal customers is twice that of our other customers. Every price point at Libas is tied to customer acquisition results.

You have recently entered flash trading platforms, a channel where marketing spend is also increasing. What is a clothing brand like yours doing in this channel?

Holiday shopping is no longer a single-channel game; It has become omnichannel. For example, we no longer buy Diwali clothes well in advance; Life has become busy for all of us. We have partnered with swift commerce to capture traffic to these platforms. This marks the beginning of clothing brands listing on express commerce, currently leading to a very high conversion rate for this category. For example, coordinate sets perform very well in swing trading.

This year we did an outdoor campaign with Zepto to announce our launch on the platform. Zepto is known for his slapstick humor and is known for designing billboards very well. Online marketing is particularly complex, especially during the festive season. So whatever you do offline, if you execute it well, it will attract great attention online as well.

But isn’t flash trade best for essentials and everyday items?

Fundamental categories do well in swing trading, but people are also open to making higher value trades in swing trading. We see an adventure similar to the one experienced in e-commerce a few years ago in this channel. The move to higher transactions will happen soon. People are already buying gold, air purifiers, and iPhones through flash trading. Also, fast trade, II. and III. The level is also increasing rapidly in towns.

Tell me more about how you bridge offline campaigns with online marketing.

We create experiences for our customers like our flagship Purple Day Sale. Thus, our offline brand is also strengthened. We have an IP (intellectual property) called Libas Circle, where we perform, designed to create a sense of community in our store. This is an experience that people can enjoy completely free of charge. We don’t believe in inviting a celebrity for store openings. So we’ve done this in the past. But our stores are for people, and we don’t just want celebrities and influencers to be a part of it. I want it to be for the customers, by them and for the customers.

We are currently hosting free makeup pop-ups in collaboration with Nykaa. Karwa Chauth. We offer shagun ki mehendi just for ₹#1 in our stores in North India as well as a few stores in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. We collaborated with Ferns N Petals on Mother’s Day and Women’s Day. That’s why we constantly organize events.

So how can you adapt traditional holiday season marketing messages to a younger, fashion-conscious customer base?

‘Roshni’ campaign is currently going on on our social media. This is the first time we are running such a campaign. In this campaign, we celebrated women with their goddess energy. The main theme is that women are gentle but also fierce. The campaign is darker, more intense and of course the clothes look amazing. The idea was to preserve our tradition and storytelling. We have these goddesses and their cultural associations, so why not combine that with feminine energy? Understanding the modern Indian woman is our daily job.