Final Report

Inkfruit is an online t-shirt store, where t-shirt designs are submitted and voted for by a community Inkfruit is Asia’s

largest co-creation brand for people to submit, discover and buy amazing designs created by artists from around the world.

The selected designs then get to you through T-shirts, Flip-flops, Sling bags, Laptop skins, etc. Based around the ongoing

designing contests, all the designs you see on Inkfruit have been submitted by our community.

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, Inkfruit officially launched in early December 2007(then called Gnome).

Inkfruit wanted to capture the spirit behind all you wonderful people who form the Inkfruit community, and the crazy

amazing products you come up with... Inkfruit finally came up with 2 words that just sums it all up

Inkfruit since its launch in 2007 has been a co-creation venture in the pursuit of creating Amazing Fun & Creative merchandise. “Over the years Inkfruit had become synonymous with awesome graphic T-shirts. However, the collection has expanded from just T-shirts to a lot more - Bags, Flip-flops and Laptop Skins being the most recent additions.

USP

RETURN POLICY

If customer doesn't like what they get, they can send it back to Inkfruit. As per their wish, company will replace it with any other design they might want or refund their payment. Inkfruit really want you to love what customer gets and not be "stuck" with it. Just, please make sure that the peice is returned in the condition you received it in. If the goods are returned because of any product damage, Inkfruit will bear the cost of return shipment and also replace the product. If the goods are returned because of personal choice changes - e.g. if you order a blue one but then want a black one instead or you order a small but then want a medium instead - in such cases Inkfruit

would still exchange the piece, But the return shipment cost would be borne by the customer.

SHIPPING CHARGES

Within India anywhere Inkfruit has free shipping charges.

VALUE PROPOSITION

Customer End:-

1. Customers get to select latest amazing design of their own choice to be printed on the products (i.e. T-shirts, laptops, wallets, Flip-Flops) every week at a “click”.

2. Customers get an affordable price in comparison to other branded apparels.

3. Customers get delivery of the ordered product at their respective geographical location without being charged for the shipping cost. Shipping of the order is also available outside India.

4. Customers also get an additional facility of “Easy Return Policy” on the products being purchased from the website.

5. Customers get to browse through various designs and vote the best design.

Designer End:-

1. Inkfruit.com provides new amateur designers a platform to showcase their creative designing skills for the buyers.

2. Designers also get an opportunity to have an exposure by winning the ‘Weekly Competition’ and can also earn a monetary benefit through it.

Supplier End:-

1. Retailers get a “minimum sales guarantee deal” from Inkfruit.com where the latter abides to compensate the retailers for any sales less than the agreed minimum target.

REVENUE MODEL

Sales Revenue Model

Inkfruit.com sells the given products in various categories- Designer T-shirts, Designer Laptop Skins, and Designer Flip-flops, Bags, Wallets, Bag Flaps. Here the revenue model being used by Inkfruit.com is the sales revenue model. Inkfruit.com sells these products at an affordable price to the customers, where customer gets a facility to pay through various payment methods (discussed later in this report).

Affiliate Revenue Model

Inkfruit also runs its Affiliate program as one of its Sales channel.

TYPE OF BUSINESS MODEL

Inkfruit.com is basically a B2C Business Model where it works as an Online Retail Store (i.e. e-tailor) of the products being offered. It provides an online interface of various Designed t-shirts for its users.

The apparel/clothing market in India runs into billions of dollar, nearly 30 billion annually. The big brands segment that accounts for just 5% share of this overall pie, attracts the most attention. Its share is likely to grow several times as more Indians move into urban areas and the middle class in India aspires for more.

There are a number of players within this space with different price points and positioning. But the segment is still markedly different than the unorganized, non-premium segment which jostles for decent margins competing with the low cost imports from the Chinese and the South East Asian garment manufacturers. Sundry markets in India with rows and rows of garments shop selling garments at only a fraction of their branded counterparts are very popular. But the branded segment has the power of brand and design on its side. The consumers buying in this segment have graduated higher up on the Maslow’s hierarchy, and don’t see apparels as mere commodities anymore. They have come to experience their clothing as an expression of their individuality. Both brand and design address this need.

India does not have a pure T-shirt brand. Although most of the readymade brands have T shirts I feel that there is a scope for a pure-play T shirt brand. Because there is a wide acceptance of this category among all demographic profiles in the Indian market. Ladies, Kids, Gents, youth ;all like wearing T-shirts.

In this perspective, Inkfruit has done the right move in tapping this market. Here the differentiation is with design.

On a comparative scale India does not have high quality product brands – while it is a very competitive market, most of the offerings are like ‘me too’ and lack creativity. A model like Inkfruit can consistently offer exclusive products across categories.

BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY

Inkfruit.com has used a blue ocean strategy and entered or for that matter created a market space which for that matter was unavailable at least in India. Instead of being just another place for selling shirts, it in fact is a place for T Shirt designers to hangout.

Blue Ocean Strategy:

1. Create uncontested market space2. Make the competition irrelevant

3. Create and capture new demand

4. Break the value‐cost trade‐off

5. Align the whole system of a company’s activities in pursuit of differentiation  and low cost

CROWDSOURCING

Inkfruit has gone ahead and adopted a co-creation model and democratized its design process. They’re crowdsourcing their design process. From the beginning their business model has been focused on getting their ‘designs’ right. In this process, Infkfruit’s business model has gradually evolved into a more intensive co-creation model. Inkfruit let the community do their stuff and help them in whatever way we can. We focus on getting the best talent on Inkfruit.

Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call.

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Inkfruit had particular difficulties in sorting out their deals with the suppliers and retailers in the initial days due to their low volumes.

As Kashyap Dalal, founder-CEO of Inkfruit explained that during their interactions with the t-shirt printers, they realise that there is always a fixed cost and a variable cost of printing any design. The fixed cost consists of making the dyes used in printing the t-shirts. When the volumes are low, the fixed cost is a major component and therefore it is not profitable for suppliers to supply low volumes of t-shirts. In order to solve this situation, Inkfruit cut a deal wherein Inkfruit paid a fixed price, to cover the fixed costs of the manufacture, and a variable price. Overtime, with their volumes improving, they switched to the conventional system.

There were similar problems at the retailer’s end. Retailers were doubtful about how long Inkfruit would continue and if Inkfruit would be able to bring in sufficient sales. Inkfruit again provided the retailers a minimum sales guarantee deal wherein Inkfruit will compensate the retailers for any sales less than the agreed minimum target. However Inkfruit received warm response from customers and they never really had to compensate any retailer. Even in cases where they did not achieve targeted sales initially, the retailers were happy to continue their relationship and did not ask for compensation. The key as Navneet Rai, Cofounder Inkfruit explained lies in building trust with the retailers. In fact much more than the ‘minimum sales guarantee schemes’ it was the genuine commitment that Inkfruit brought to its relationship with suppliers that kept the Inkfruit’s boat steady with the retailers right through its journey.

(1) Browse through the T-Shirts currently available in the ‘Shop’ Section. One can also search for specific T-Shirts by size, colour or any tag associated with the T-Shirts.

(2) Once the customer finds the T-Shirt he/she wants, one should click on the icon for the size and sex of the T-Shirt, which will automatically add the specified T-Shirt to the SHOPPING CART. This will be indicated by a message that will flash on the screen.

(3) Multiple products can also by added just by repeating the same procedure.

(4) Once the customer is done adding T-Shirt to the shopping cart, click on the shopping cart on the right top corner to review the products they have selected.

(5) The next step is to proceed to shipping where shipping details has to be entered and confirm the order.

(6) After the order is being confirmed, one has to select a mode of payment for the order. If the payment has to made online, the customer will be taken to a secure bank interface where the payment could be made in a safe way. If the payment is made by COD(Cash on Delivery) , the order will be sent to the customer , where the payment would be made after the finak order is being received by the customer.

(7) Customer also receives an email from Inkfruit.com once the order is shipped.

(8) A customer can visit the “My Order” Page in his profile. This will show whether a an order placed by the customer is pending or being dispatched. In case of any pending the customer can contact the customer care number(referred as Customer Delight Team)

CANCELLATION OF ORDER

In the respective cases a cancellation would(could) occur (be possible)

The check-out process was not completed. The payment was declined at the payment gateway.

Cash On Delivery (COD) was not confirmed within 72 hours of placing the order.

Customer Delight team cancelled the order after discussing it with customer.

In case, the payment has already been made and the order has been cancelled, Inkfruit.com ensures that the refund of the entire amount being deducted is provided back to the customer as soon as possible (with the help of its customer delightteam).

To make sure there are no hassles in getting hands on an awesome Ink Fruit products, they have provided customer’s with a variety of methods of payment as below:

Credit Cards/ Debit Card(Mastercard, American Express and Visa)

Online Transfer (funds can be transfered from the bank account to inkfruit’s account online)

CASH ON DELIVERY(COD)

e-CommerceTechnology

Magento: Inkfruit.com is being made on MAGENTO based platform. Magento is an open source based ecommerce web application used especially in designing an e-Commerce website. The Add to Carts are some of the unique features provided by Magento based Platform.

At Inkfruit, all transactions happen through CCAvenues which is a safe and secure payment gateway. Inkfruit does not save any transaction card details on our site to ensure complete safety. Inkfruit has an assurance of a no-questions-asked refund/replacement policy.

When a customer browses through secure areas of www.inkfruit.com (payment gateway, etc), a small lock icon will appear in the lower right-corner of the web browser. When this icon is present, and in the locked position, customer knows that information on that page will be secured. Added online security to protect his personal information from unauthorized use is provided by using advanced SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption managed by specialists in the field. (SSL-128 Bit Encryption)

This website chooses “VERISIGN TRUST SEAL” to promote trust online with customer.

The VeriSign Trust™ Seal shows the world that VeriSign has confirmed your identity and your site has passed the VeriSign malware scan. The biggest companies in the world secure their Web sites with VeriSign and inspire confidence by showing the VeriSign seal

Under its privacy policy Inkfruit assures:

1. Inkfruit respect customers’ right to privacy2. Inkfruit collect only the information necessary to complete

customers’ order or to contact them regarding the status of their order. It includes customers’ name, email address, shipping address, and billing address.

3. Ink Fruit does not store customer credit card or online bank account information. These details are directly inputed by customer into the bank payment gateways which are completely secure. Inkfruit does not handle this sensitive data or store it in any way.

4. Inkfruit.com will not rent or sell customer name or personal information.

5. Inkfruit.com does utilize "cookies" to help recognize customer as a repeat visitor and to track traffic patterns on our site. This information is completely anonymous. Inkfruit use this information only to improve the user-friendliness and functionality of inkfruit.com.

There were scepticism regarding IP rights and artists felt insecure about sharing their creations. Inkfruit solved this by assuring them that the rights for the design would pass to Inkfruit only if their design won and Inkfruit would award them prize money if the design won.

The payment gateway systems – all e-commerce players face gateway timeout problems which lead to order failures.

The slow spread of broadband remains a concern. All Indian sites are compelled to work on a low speed connection option. This reduces the ability to use high definition content.

The delivery network remains a challenge. Cash on Delivery services are not available pan-India and for courier companies, there are still areas in the country which are not in coverage.

CONCLUSIONInkfruit’s democratic model of design selection is unique and leads to a much stronger engagement with artists, customers and followers of the brand.

Through this process, Inkfruit has developed a collection of products known for the amazing graphics and high quality of designs. Added to this, given that users/customers are a part of the selection process, there is a very strong following among our customers.

In conclusion, while a top line of Rs. 2 crores looks interesting, since it is a semi-trading, semi-manufacturing, plus service (retail + CRM etc.) business, it may not be leaving enough room at the bottom line. To make serious money from the venture, the top line needs to go to at least Rs. 10 crores level or so. That means, selling 5 times the number of T-shirts, on an average, from what they are doing now. How confident is InkFruit of getting there in the next 2-3 years at most? And after doing that also, the business will be Rs. 10 crores, which for a trading or retail business, still looks small. There is a clear need to examine the business model at that base level, and see what they need to do, to expand and grow very rapidly from this point.