This e-commerce start-up finds its feet in the oversized men’s clothing sector

Many ideas of startups arise from the personal struggle of an entrepreneur. Jupiter Boutique by Dhruv Chadha is no different.

The 35-year-old athlete remembers being the strangest at school because of his 12-foot height. This “anomaly” caused him a hard blow at 15: an ace football player, Dhruv could not play the final.

“I didn’t have the right shoes to play the game,” he recalls.

With few options available in India, Dhruv had to wait for loved ones living abroad to bring him shoes from the West.

“Non-standard people regularly face these gaps. There are millions of people who exceed the size XL (extra large) and who find it difficult to find clothes or shoes of the right size. Retailers do not stock these sizes because they do not have a high density of attendance, ”he adds.

Dhruv’s personal frustration led him to launch Jupiter Shop, a Mumbai-based business “Big and Big” E-Commerce Market which helps oversized men find trendy clothes and shoes in hard to find sizes.

“Jupiter being the largest planet is symbolic for our objective”, quips Dhruv. The startup has been bootstrap since its creation in 2013, Dhruv having invested Rs 60 lakh until there.

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First steps

As a management student at Mithibai Motiram Kundnani College in Mumbai, Dhruv launched Jupiter Shop as an online store in 2013. To begin with, she joined forces with Nike import large clothing and shoes.

“In the first two weeks, we have run out of stocks,” he says.

After testing the idea, Dhruv then partnered with approximately 20 brands, including Asics, New balance, and Fangs, among others. In fact, he also sources very large stocks from Indian exporters who manufacture clothing for the American and European markets.

At that time, Jupiter Shop had only one main warehouse to manage the stock of the e-commerce market. “People often visited the warehouse to try on the clothes. It was then that I realized that a brick and mortar store was neededExplains Dhruv.

In 2017, he opened Jupiter Shop’s first offline store in Mumbai.

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Big happy feet

Target mainly six feet and tall men, Jupiter Shop does clothing sizes XL to 9XL available, and shoes from sizes 11 to 15. According to the founder, prices vary between Rs 750 and Rs 20,000.

The e-commerce startup has more than 9,000 customers across the country, mainly metros. Its revenue model is that of a omnichannel retailer, and the startup records a Organic growth of 30% year-on-year. His customer retention rate is over 95%, Note Dhruv, adding that annual revenues amount to Rs 1 crore currently.

Currently, Jupiter Shop has only three team members. In addition to himself, Dhruv hired one person to deal with electronic commerce and another as a merchandiser.

According to the founder, nine percent of the population belongs to the “oversized” category. “Over 60 million people in India are struggling to find their size because regular retailers do not stock them,” he said. In fact, media reports suggest that “large” consumers make up about 67% of the population, whose clothing needs generate about $ 21 billion in annual sales.

The ALL brand of Future Group, which is a large clothing store, is an important player in this category. In addition to this, Bigbanana is another brand offering large men’s clothing. However, Dhruv says that the USP of Jupiter Shop lies in the fact that it is “multi-brand and offers large shoes and tall clothing, in addition to large clothing”.

In the future, Dhruv seeks to have a presence at the national level, starting with metropolitan cities, including Delhi and Bengaluru. However, he is not yet considering raising funds.

(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)