Kerala’s menswear startup G&A launches e-commerce platform

Kochi: Kochi-based apparel startup Giacca & Abito Sartoriale (G&A) has launched its e-commerce portal, Tea and Tailoring.

Apart from G&A’s exclusive products, the online space will also feature curated premium brands that offer home textiles, innerwear and more.

The e-commerce portal has been launched ahead of its plan to open exclusive offline stores. The first such store will come up in Lulu, Thiruvananthapuram next month, and another one in Kozhikode.

The company, founded by Kollam native Sreejith Sreekumar, is foraying into the e-market after three years of brand building, during which it concentrated on B2B channels.

Tea and Tailoring aims to be a leading men’s fashion & lifestyle e-commerce model to seamlessly integrate the online shopping experience with offline retail. The brand focuses on delivering a premium shopping experience, down to the most minute details, till the last mile delivery to the consumer, at the most affordable prices. The online platform will feature the company’s in-house brands, including T the Brand featuring formal wear and accessories, Bare Brown for Casual wear, Tale of Teal featuring Ethnic wear, Tea Bar having tea products such as exotic teas and T&T Stationery. Men’s fashion jewellery, sleepwear/loungewear are upcoming projects under T&T.

“The apparel e-commerce industry in India is primarily discount and offer driven. A lot of brands get launched via e-commerce with little or no product testing and thrive on aggressive discounts and pricing. This in turn results in high product returns and low customer retention and doesn’t help in creating strong brands over a period of time," Sreekumar, founder and CEO of G&A, said at a press meet here on Wednesday.

"We decided to swim against the current by launching our products through MBOs, where the competition is with the other brands on the store racks. The winning factor here is the product quality and G&A’s products proved to be a winner here which aims to balance aesthetics, quality and comfort.

"Once we proved our worth in the industry, we decided to branch our channels and start our own e-commerce platform, featuring all our premium products, which we are constantly growing and improving. We hope that our top-notch products at affordable prices will bring more customers to turn away from the ‘discount culture’, and towards quality goods in the industry."