Alia Bhatt has turned in an entrepreneur after the launch of her own startup venture in the kidswear category called Ed-a-mamma. The brand markets itself different from other competitors, by offering a range of naturally sources and sustainable apparel for children in the age group of 2-14 years. Bhatt has already invested in the beauty products e-tailer Nykaa and fashion styling platform StyleCracker. She has fully financed Ed-a-mamma, currently managed by a small in-house design, marketing and operations team.
Ed-a-mamma is Bhatt’s own venture and placed apart from other celebrity clothing labels that are co-created with a revenue sharing model. E-commerce platform Myntra, for example has partnerships with Hrithik Roshan (for casual wear brans HRX) and Deepika Padukone (All About You), all manufacturing for the youth category. Wrogn is co-owned and promoted by Indian cricketeer, Virat Kohli. Similarly, USPL also owns Imara, a clothing line co-created by Bollywood actor Shraddha Kapoor who also owns a stake in the brand.
The brand is currently available on online babycare store FirstCry with a range starting at Rs 350. Availability on multi-brand e-tailers such as Amazon and Flipkart is also expected early next year. The company will launch a dedicated e-commerce website, which shall be functional in April 2021. “We have ensured that ethical clothing should not be a farfetched thought. Customers can buy good quality clothes at an affordable price. The customer response to the brand has been a testimony to that. Nearly 70% of our range has already been sold out since the launch 6 weeks ago. Its reassuring that the product can sell on its own and as the demand increases we will look into other verticals such as accessories, footwear and toys,” Bhatt said.
In the last decade, no large national level brand has shined in the children’s wear segment, said Sreedhar Prasad, internet business expert and former partner at KPMG. According to him, kidswear is an untapped market as customers are forced to purchase new products almost every year leading to greater wastage. Therefore this brand exclusively caters to the section of parents who have purchasing power and are equally concerned about the environment, which can aid in fulfilling the demands of this consumer base.
“There are two key challenges that the brand will face primarily reaching the correct target audience who have the purchasing power and secondly investing in educating those set of consumers who do not buy into sustainability proposition in their clothing choices. Globally, sustainable clothing is targeted at women. So from that perspective sustainable kidswear is a good category to venture into as most purchase decisions are made by mothers. Having said that, since there is no big national brand for kidswear in India, design, quality and convenience are huge USPs to follow rather than sustainability alone,” he added.
