In 2016, NIFT graduate Udita Bansal sought a brand that reflected her aspirations and the quest to return to her roots. Bansal reminisces, “I was moving towards embracing ethnicity but in more contemporary wear and could not find go-to brands for the product that I was looking for. It started as a pure customer need. Supported by market validation on the market size, where the industry and consumer trends were moving, trueBrowns was conceptualised.” The brand went live on a few platforms to test the product, pricing and quality and the market validation gave the confidence to incorporate trueBrowns in 2019.

The key differentiator for trueBrowns has always been its focus on being an inclusive brand representing women of all shapes and sizes. When the brand was in the testing process it offered sizes up to 10XL, till 2019, when it pared down its offering to 6XL. From a data perspective, 20%-22% of sales came in from extreme sizes and Bansal says that being a size-inclusive brand became a marketing call across marketplaces. While inclusivity has been a differentiator, the brand’s offering and standpoint have also evolved along the way with trueBrowns now also positioned as a “conscious brand”.

In the initial phase, the company was not doing a lot of brand marketing and the hero, per se, was the product. Bansal says that product consistency and improvising its offerings based on consumer insights helped trueBrowns take a step ahead and make its place in the apparel market. When it came to marketing, the company went “very aggressive and all out on marketplaces” by listing on small and big platforms to understand the consumer – where they were present, what they were saying, and which platform was working. While the brand did see success, it also learnt that trueBrowns became one of the biggest brands on the smaller marketplaces. This brought in a marketing mileage for trueBrowns. 

Bansal explains, “It began from marketplaces where a good product got us good sales. The marketplaces pushed the brand in their marketing and hence the visibility of the brand overall saw a jump. Post that, we started our website and then we started small in terms of performance marketing.”

trueBrowns made its international foray in January 2023 and the brand has seen “over 100% growth MoM” and currently USA is the biggest market. Bansal says. “There is a lot of potential for the brand to go international and we are going to build the international channel as a separate business in terms of building all channels including international-specific brand and channel marketing, and eventually look at content suitable for international markets.” In India, the brand also started its shop-in-shop journey last year with multi-brand retail stores and trueBrowns’ plan is to expand and open up exclusive brand outlets in the coming year.

trueBrowns also ventured into the jewellery space in April 2023 and into men’s ethnic fashion wear in October 2023 with the response, particularly from the men’s category outperforming expectations with the initial traction being 3x of what was estimated. When the brand started, marketplaces contributed to over 80% of the sales with the brand’s microsite contributing a smaller percentage. Today trueBrowns’ microsite, contributes to about 75% of its sales; international contributes about 25%.

She continues, “Our vision is to keep our brand website as our key channel because we are not just selling a product; we are building a brand and a story and we want consumers to connect with us on the why of trueBrowns, of who this woman is, what does she want to do and how she leads her life. Be a part of that and then automatically love the product. So the brand website means a lot of marketing, content, and storytelling. We will trickle down into menswear, get into more categories, build jewellery further.” Commenting on growth she says, “In FY23, we grew 3x of FY22, this year we have grown about 2x of the previous year and next year we see a growth of 1.5x”

On a final noteBansal reiterates, “From the very beginning our vision has been to a global, urban, ethnic brand from India and we are on that journey.”