3. • What Zomato and TripAdvisor did to eating out and travel, start-ups like Roposo and
Wooplr hope to do for fashion retail
• These are fashion discovery apps and sites that run on user-generated content
• Their importance is increasing as they work on the concept of user-generated
content
• And on the web, UGC has always been able to influence decision making
• That is what Wooplr & Roposo are doing for the apparel retail
• These Start-ups let users who are fashionistas create and curate looks and direct
conversations on styles. For instance, if you are looking for a little black dress, or LBD,
then you just need to go to a fashion discovery app that will pull out its top picks and
direct you to stores where you could get the dress. Unlike Pinterest where users pin
content from here and there, the content is usually original on these social fashion
discovery sites
What are Wooplr & Roposo?
4. Wooplr - a startup that is aiming to
ignite social commerce in India
• It’s a Bangalore-based company
• Founded in March 2013 by four ex-McAfee
colleagues — Arjun Zacharia, Soumen
Sarkar, Praveen Rajaretnam & Ankit
Sabharwal
• Started out as a social network for sharing
fashion photos
• It has evolved into a discovery platform for
fashion enthusiasts
• Moto - Providing the right product, to the
right user, at the right time
5. How BIG is Wooplr?
• 100,000 registered users across its Android, Windows Phone and iOS apps — a
desktop service exists
• 80 percent of its active users are women
• It’s primary audience is females aged 16-30 yrs
• All content has been added by users themselves
• There are products from more than 1,600 retailers at this point
6. How does it work?
• The service use a basic
follower/following principle
• Like aggregators, suggestions and
curated content are also thrown in for
good measure
• You can’t buy items directly (yet)
• People post pictures of their outfits,
which are then surfaced and showcased
to others
• Along with the picture, you can get
details on where to buy them — both
online and at offline outlets near them
7. Have other Brands used the service
• Brands are yet to warm up to Wooplr as it hasn’t yet turned on the monetization
tap
• However, it did test the water with a limited trial among retailers
• Selected partners paid $10 to have a ‘store-front’ inside the service. Rather than
displaying their entire inventory, they were encouraged to showcase newer items
and things that would appeal to their primary audience
• There is also an ambition to move into payments in the future, so as to capture
transactions at the moment of interest from its users
8. Roposo - Express your style, follow
trendsetters and find amazing
products
• Roposo was founded in 2013 by three IIT Delhi alumni,
Mayank Bhangadia, Avinash Saxena, and Kaushal
Shubhank as a branch of Giveter, a gifting platform
• It’s a bit different from Wooplr
• Dominated by women, the service allows them to
discover and shop new products and trends that are
curated, personalized and updated daily from across
online brands and e-commerce portals
• It’s user base mainly consists of women 16-35yrs
• Not just popular in metros, but also Tier 2 cities, and
towns, across India.
11. Wooplr & Roposo - How does it work for
the retailers?
• For both Roposo and Wooplr, affiliate marketing (getting paid by e-commerce
sites for leading users to it) is a revenue stream.
• Wooplr also has Social Storefronts to drive more leads and sales for SMEs.
• They will be charged either a subscription fee or on a pay per transaction basis.
12. • As the Internet audience in India
is on the increase, the user-
generated content is escalating
four times every month
• In a country where there are
numerous brands all competing
for the same consumer, UGC plays
a big role in directing this
audience to specific brands
Wooplr & Roposo thrive on UGC
UGC – User Generated Content
13. • There was Fetise.com, a niche e-commerce platform for
men, backed by SeedFund but it shut down in February last
year
• Right now the focus is on women fashion, but as awareness
increases, we may see a lot of social networks or discovery
platforms for men in the future
• Roposo intends to first focus on women, become masters of
it, and then move to Men’s Fashion
The future for men’s brand
UGC – User Generated Content