Fans of the Avengers series would probably have heard about GeekCrate. Every month, this company ships out a very special dazzling box to geeks in India who love comics, television, movies, gaming and anime. By paying about Rs 1,900 a month, they get a box of merchandise worth about Rs 2,500, with goodies such as the totem from ‘Inception’ or a t-shirt.
GeekCrate owner Tejas Chitnis takes orders until the 25th of every month. He then places one large wholesale order to curate a box containing a t-shirt, special-themed notebooks, a themed-necklace from an anime or comic strip and so on. His company caters to the child in everyone.
“Everyone likes DC and Marvel comics, but anime generally gets a very good response as well because it’s not easily available,” said Chitnis. “Demand is mostly from tier-I cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Delhi.”
It’s a unique business model: companies curating a box of surprises for customers every month against an upfront subscription fee. Usually, the goodies are worth more than what the customer pays.
Subscription boxes, which have been around in western markets for a few years now, have started making inroads into India now in businesses such as health foods, beauty and lifestyle products as well as clothing accessories.
While there are no official figures of growth in this segment, subscription box aggregator Scribber.in founder Jigar Vora estimates there are about 40,000 such boxes shipped out monthly.
“It’s a great way to receive personalised products because companies are curating a box especially for you. Plus, the value of the box is usually higher than what you pay for,” he explained.
“It’s a good experience overall,” said Jyoti Panigrahi, 23, a customer in Mumbai. “I get to try lots of products at affordable prices, also some new brands. But sometimes the curation is not of my choice so that can be a bit disappointing.”
Nitin Chordia, who runs gourmet chocolate company Cocoatrait out of Chennai, said subscription boxes are their mainstay.
“We can satisfy both new and loyal customers who want to start exploring the unknown world of dark chocolates,” Chordia said.
The company has two variants – basic and luxury – and each has one, three and six-month options for which Cocoatrait charges in advance.
However, subscription box companies face some challenges in India. Customers here are unfamiliar with the concept and hesitant to shell out money in advance. Also, banking laws don’t help with making payments.
Anup Mehta of Inskinn, who sells subscription boxes with funky socks, said he has close to 1,000 subscribers, but they don’t always understand the concept.
“We’ve had people ask us if they have to return last month’s socks when we sent them the next month’s box,” he said.
Surprise
Box companies said auto-renewal charges are difficult to take because of government regulations and so, many of them charge customers upfront or take cash on delivery. More recently, the government introduced an auto-debit option for some banks, giving these businesses some respite.
The market for food subscription boxes is just about opening up. My Embrace Box is a snacks curator that has experimented with a few models. The company started off with a mystery box, taking inspiration from the US. But customers in India are still iffy about shelling out money to try out new foods, says cofounder Akriti Grover.
“So, we have to reveal the general idea of what customers would get, say, a snack bar and chips, to make it clearer to them, as opposed to it being a total mystery,” she said.
Joey Saha, founder of The Moja Club, another company that sells quirky socks online, started off as a subscription-only service in 2016. The model was simple: customers would get surprise socks in their mailbox every month. But they didn’t take to it.
“Maybe Indians are not a fan of surprises. There isn’t enough convenience either. Even today, two-factor authentication is needed and there isn’t any auto-renewal of subscriptions every month,” says Saha.
The company has gone back to a more traditional model. About 10-15% of its revenue still comes from subscriptions, but what started off with about 3,000 subscribers has stabilised at about 1,000.
In the pet space, though, businesses are relatively optimistic. Dogsee Chew, which supplies high-end pet nutritional foods, has several customers who are repeat buyers. The company is working on providing a subscription box so that customer don’t have to come repeatedly to place the order. Heads Up For Tails, a pet store that sells products both online and offline, has a ‘WagBox’ listed on its site for your furry friends.
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