Too expensive to buy? Rent instead

There is an emerging trend of renting out designer outfits for a fraction of their market price.

It was wedding season and Aishwarya Jain was talking to her friend Smriti Gupta, who complained she had seven weddings to attend and each of them had three events.

"Buying something new for every event is going to be very expensive," she said.

There were plenty of websites offering cheap outfits, but they all meant making a purchase.

There were other costs attached to a purchase: maintaining these clothes, dry-cleaning them, and then there's a chance these might go out of style before the next big event.

Jain realised there were people who wanted to wear designer clothes but don't want to go buy. They would be willing to rent it. So, she started thestyledoor.com.

The Style Door's mandate is simple: rent designer clothes (for men and women) for a fraction of its market price, deliver it to the customer's home and pick it up after the rent period expires.

She doesn't need to maintain inventory as she adopted the marketplace model and got designers to list their creations on her website. How much will it cost? Anywhere from Rs 300 to Rs 12,000.

"If someone likes their outfit and wants to buy it, they can go to the designer. If not, it stays on the website for someone else," said Jain. This is similar to renttherunway.com started in the US some time ago.

"When I was researching the idea, I found that these two Harvard Business School graduates had launched a website and it was catching on quickly. I was encouraged," said Jain.

The 23-year-old former marketing professional from NMIMS left her high-paying job to pursue her dream in fashion.

"I had worked with well-known fashion stylist Tanya Ghavri. I made friends during my stint there," said Jain.

She launched the website in June 2015.

"It has been in beta stage. But a few weeks ago, we launched the website officially. It doesn't mean we aren't tinkering behind the scenes," she added.

Currently, The Style Door has creations of eight designers wooing customers on the website.

"I plan to scale it up to 15 by the end of September," she said.

Each outfit is sterilised and is clean, she assured.

Jain gets an average of 1,500 unique hits a month.

"We have had about 60 customers in the past three months. I hope we can go up to 1,000 by the end of the year," she said.

"Most of my orders come from Mumbai's suburbs but I think that will change once the website gains traction."

Currently, her average transaction size is Rs 1,500 and expects that to climb once Navratri starts. She, however, doesn't advertise her services at dandiya nights or popular malls.

"I did research, which showed that people at malls want to buy from stores and won't be the first to adopt the model," she explained.

Right now, photographers, stylists, designers and her tweets are doing the speaking on her behalf.

Lead image used for representational purposes only. Image: Ajay Verma/Reuters