Utsav Fashion was an early adopter of e-commerce in India, but the business focused primarily on the international market to begin with: it began its online business as early as 2003. In January this year, the company hired Pradeep Katyal as its CEO, with the objective of driving growth. The company sells bridal sarees, trendy Salwar Kameez, and Indian bridal wear offering exquisite collection of jewelry, traditional wedding accessories, handbags, and footwear. Here's an excerpt from our interaction with Katyal: MediaNama: How's your business doing? Katyal: Our growth rate was 200% over the same month last year. We do around Rs 10 crores per month, last year we closed at Rs 60 crore. MediaNama: How did you start out? Katyal: When we opened the store in Jaipur, many of our clients were tourists, NRIs visiting India, and non NRI population, and they were buying in bulk, and taking it abroad. That's where the business started, when a youngster in the family created the site. This business was focused on NRIs and customers abroad. We tied up with a US payment gateway, our servers are in the US, and a lean and mean structure right from the beginning. One thing that helped the business was that Manoj Sarohi, the MD, had created a courier business, and that supply chain experience, helped in e-commerce. MediaNama: How was the business marketed? Katyal: We have been fairly smart on SEO from the beginning, and it took time to develop. Whatever hard work was put…
