The year was 2016 and while browsing for a ready-made sari blouse, I stumbled on a website that not only stocked Indian ethnic styles at affordable prices, but also made the sari-clad models look ‘cool’. Hooked, I spent many happy hours going through the inventory, which had, to my surprise, a section on curve wear. Plus sizes were not easily available then and always had problems getting my fit – both offline and online. The website was AJIO and it changed my life.

The growth story of AJIO is synonymous with the journey of India’s digital commerce. In many ways both followed the same trajectory. Fashion became the gateway to ecommerce, as India was a brand-deficient country. There were many Indian-born scalable global brands that were leveraged to advance a company, and through a supportive ecosystem meet the ever-increasing demand. Finally, use technological innovations and become omnichannel.

Coming from the legacy of Reliance, the brand, from the onset, chose an omnichannel strategy for its rapid expansion, where the e-commerce site relies on Reliance Trends’ inventory. With the use of aisle kiosks and in-store couponing, AJIO improved RIL’s O2O (offline-to-online) capabilities and made direct shipments from Trends Footwear stores and Trends stores across the country. As a result, AJIO was able to leapfrog its way up to position itself as a Myntra rival and had a multi-fold increase in revenue. It’s safe to say that the brand will quickly overtake the Flipkart-owned giant thanks to its parent firm Reliance Retail’s extensive network of physical stores and online-to-offline strategy. Recent statistics reveal that it is surpassing its closest competitors in terms of website visitors. Today, the brand operates both online and offline, with a presence in major cities across the country.

According to Vineeth Nair, CEO, AJIO, the seven-year-old brand scaled up rapidly. “The pedigree and lineage that we come from, we are in no position to be number two or three. Therefore, this rapid growth was ordained on us in many ways. As a platform, we are still inquisitive. But, we got the basics right from the very beginning,” he explained.

Strategic Moves

AJIO’s goal was simple – rapid expansion through creative marketing and O2O business model. Online-to-offline strategy helped the company to sell its items both online and offline. Customers could purchase AJIO products through the company’s online store, mobile app, physical storefronts, and other retail locations. The advantage of this model was that it allowed the brand to reach a wider customer base by leveraging the convenience and reach of the internet.

This became especially important for the fashion and lifestyle genre, as customers often wanted to try on clothing and see how it looked before purchasing it. AJIO has always been a trend-forward company, bringing global styles, brands and trends to India and making them affordable. One such smart move was to introduce the sneakers category when the trend was in its nascent stage. This brought in a lot of traffic, from ardent sneakerheads who were always on the lookout for world-class sneakers.

Additionally, AJIO doled out heavy discounts in the ‘Sneakerhood Sale’, which attracted these niche customers. Furthermore, the tagline of it being a Reliance baby automatically brought in the necessary brand trust for authentic products.

The next steps were to introduce different storefronts to attract the correct customer base, as well as introducing AJIO LUXE with fantastic discounts!

Price Race

With the deep pockets of Reliance, AJIO has priced their products not too low and not too high. It depends on the design and quality of the products. Almost all products are affordable while maintaining quality, providing a wide range of options and international brands. Reliance’s annual report stated that AJIO offered over 13 lakh styles of curated collections across its own brand and 5,000+ national and international brands.

Nair explained this approach, “When we are competing with somebody, we would look for chinks in their armor. Is he building a brand that is based on a long-term sustainable competitive advantage? Or is he competing on price? Can I go after him on price? Price is a segment that we mostly emphasize on. Our aim is to push the right kind of brands, deliver discoverability to our consumers, split and dice our consumer segment into multiple parts so that they can discover what they want easily.”

In addition to being affordable, Reliance is renowned for its top-notch customer support. Consumers who purchase goods using the AJIO app have the option of simple returns and replacements, which increases the app’s dependability for its users. The platform’s extremely user-friendly UI also offers customers a satisfying experience. In fact, the AJIO staff have received specialized training to respond to all consumer inquiries.

“For AJIO, the second most important part was optimizing operational cost. We ship from 5000+ locations every day. It is a painful exercise, but it gives us a huge cost advantage. It was critical for us to build scale. If you don’t have scale, you keep struggling. It’s a vicious circle,” Nair elaborated on how the brand expanded rapidly.

From Luxe to Street

Reliance Retail will be soon launching storefront that will cater to longtail fashion, an addition to the e-commerce platform aimed at increasing its customer base by selling fashion and accessory products with an average order value of Rs 300-350, which would typically cost Rs 1,000 or more in other platforms. The products will start from as low as Rs 199! The move will make AJIO a unique platform that would cater to a customer base from luxury to street!

At the recently concluded IReC x D2C Summit 2023, Nair had stated that geo-targeting and data analysing pointed them into this direction. “It is critical to understand the consumer whom you are targeting to know what he is looking for. So, data, not your understanding of the consumer, should be the one that tells you who is your customer. If you know what they want, you can curate storefronts so they can discover the products easily. The AJIO app is therefore, broken up into multiple cohorts. These cohorts are defined by your buying and browsing behavior.”

It was this philosophy that is bringing the new AJIO storefronts to life. As per reports, the move was made after AJIO discovered that it would be impossible to sell luxury and street products on the same platform. Nair elaborated on the reasoning, “Can a Rs 300,000 and Rs 300 jeans be on the same platform? It doesn’t make sense. You can’t be everything for everybody, but that is what digitization does for you. It gives you the ability to create distinct journeys for distinct people.”

As the brand marched forward in their pursuit of market dominance, we await to witness how the multiple storefronts of the upcoming exciting launches will fare.