About Us
SANSKRITAM
Sanskritam is an ethnic wear brand run by a young couple Ritika and Gaurav.
Currently it’s a 100% online business started back in 2021. In a span of 3yrs we have grown the business to a level wherein we have achieved around Rs5Cr in revenue in the FY23-24.
The Story
This is a story of building a clothing brand which involved a lot of hard work and determination.
Back in 2019, I, Ritika was thinking of starting a business of my own. I was hopeful and excited as most people would be before starting something new in their lives. I was yet to figure out a definite product to go with, although I knew that I will be doing something in Textile.
January 2020 was when I thought I will be making Women Ethnic Wear, and invested some of my savings from my previous job and started working on it right away. My Mother, Sumiti, is also a business woman and has a Fancy-Dress business. I discussed the same with her and she suggested to get some kurtas made by the tailors we already had at that time who were working for my mother.
Selling on Socia Media (Instagram) was somewhat a new concept and I had a page wherein I used to post some of the illustrations I made back when I was in college, so I decided to convert that page as my business account. I used the name of my mother’s business to start with and named it “Sanskriti”
I was not very sure whether this business would actually work or not but I went with it anyway as my mother used to tell me that starting a business is always a risk that you need to take, either you’ll flourish or you’ll fail miserably but if you believe in your idea and your product then you must go ahead and take that risk anyway.
1st Feb 2020, I posted a story on my Insta account for the first time, introducing my brand to the world.
I did not think that this would be my first step in making of a Reputable Ethnic wear brand in this industry on social media.
Initially it was just my family and friends who were interacting with my Business page and I myself was not thinking that social media would be the way of selling so I entered an exhibition and on 7th Feb 2020 I Displayed my products to Chandigarh people and the response was decent.
March 7th and 8th 2020 I was a part of the “Shakti Expo 2020- Shakti National Convention of Women Entrepreneurs” and got featured in Hindustan times.
(In the list of names: 2nd column, 9th row- Sanskriti)
The sales were not great but the products were being liked by people which made me believe in my creativity and my brand.
While I have just began to believe that I might be on the right path, all of a sudden, a wave struck us down, Covid was here and on March 24th we all know what happened. Although it was a major setback for us but a huge opportunity in disguise as because of covid I shifted my focus towards social media which later on proved to be crucial.
Meanwhile due to covid people refrained from buying online too. I was posting some of my inventory online but did not get
much of a response and on 28th August 2020 things came to a halt as we made 0 sales from social media. I was stuck with inventory and there were no exhibitions as well. I thought that this was the end. I was working as a coding instructor with White hat junior simultaneously while all of this was happening.
When we were thinking that covid is our only problem, yet again something dreadful stumbled upon us and a fire that started from a shop on the ground floor got a hold of all my mother’s inventory and allof mine as well on the first floor. Two decades of my mother’s hard work turned
into ashes right Infront of us.
As most of the schools and colleges were now operating online, my mother’s business was at a halt too and on top of that She lost Rs2crore plus of inventory in that fire. My mother was supporting our staff all through the lockdown and was giving them 50% of their Salary to help them make both ends meet. Despite sucha huge loss we continued to support our staff with our savings and I also started contributing my Salary towards it. While everything was against Sanskritam and I could have easily dropped this idea, my heart was telling me that here’s no better scenario for this to actually work out as what was something of an experiment to begin with has now became a need of the hour. This could not only help me establish a dream of mine but could also help my mother and her staff to start working again. I started again and in March 2021 I started selling on Amazon and Flipkart using the money I saved from my Job, while now you must be thinking that this must be it, this must be my 1st step towards success, well unfortunately it wasn’t.
We had only 1 sale in two months. Shattered yet determined I decided to give last of my all and invested in social media marketing through a marketing agency, as I knew that with covid a lot of people have started joining and engaging on social media. I changed the name to SANSKRITAM, Instagram handle to Mysanskritam, launched a website mysanskritam.com , crossed my fingers and went with
it.
May 2021, the month that brought us to life, the month of joy, the month of Sukoon. We got 67 orders and a sale of Rs96231 and there was no looking back from there.
In FY 2021-22 we did a revenue of Rs50Lakh. We also paid our staff their full salary that was pending from covid.
My mother was my biggest strength throughout my journey but there was another person who supported me emotionally and was there to support every decision of mine. Gaurav and I were dating since 2018 and was there in all my ups and downs specially during this phase of my life. I knew I couldn’t let go of someone who have loved me through my thick and thin and we got married in Feb 2022. Gaurav had been a marketing student and was also interested in social media marketing, I asked him to start running our ads. He was a little hesitant in the beginning because he did not want anything wrong to happen to our business as marketing was one of the major aspects of it buteventually, he started running the ads from November 2022 and in Feb 2023 we touched our all-time high sale of Rs17 lakh approximately in a month. Having him involved in the business was one of the best decisions we could have taken as we only saw success from there on. From making 50lakhs in a year we reached Approximately 50Lakhs in October 2023(in 1 month). I could focus entirely on product development and production with Gaurav handling the marketing part and also the backend support and the combination of which made us more and more capable of reaching where we are today.
In FY 2022-23 we did a revenue of Rs 1.4 Cr and we are proud to say that we have taken it to another level this FY with a total revenue reaching approximately Rs5Cr
We want to continue delivering happiness to our customers and are planning to grow more and become one of the well-known brands in the country.
We wanted to share this story for every Entrepreneur out there who is struggling currently and let them know that there’s a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, your hard work will pay-off so be determined and let’s make India a hub of successful entrepreneurs.
We inaugurated our own garment production unit 0f 25+ Sewing machines on 7th July 2024 which is now fully functional. We are currently heading a team of 50+ employees.
