Prittle Prattle News in conversation with Meet Jatakia, Director of Branding & Marketing at Cossouq
Established by the Founder & CEO, Parth Patel, Cossouq is an online marketplace for new-age inclusivity, challenging irrational & unrealistic beauty standards. Housing 450+ brands from the cosmetics, skin, hair, health, & personal care industries, with 14000+ products, work towards making them accessible country-wide. Hosting top brands like Lakme, Neutrogena, Minimalist, Inglot, FacesCanada, and Vega, among other famous labels, Cossouq features a mix of brands catering to new-age beauty and skincare needs. With an inclusive approach to people of all ages, colors, gender, mindsets, or body types, customers are offered a pool of quality products at great prices & authentic brands get to reach a wider audience.
Could you describe more about the range of products/ services you offer? What is unique about your business?
We at Cossouq built an e-commerce marketplace to offer a wide range of products, from skincare and perfumes to cosmetics and makeup essentials. With 450+ brands already onboarded on our website, we have 100+ brands in the pipeline, ready to go live on our platform. Primarily, Cossouq is known for celebrating each individual and their uniqueness. We, as a brand, stand for diversity and inclusivity to challenge irrational beauty standards. That is what sets us apart from the competition.
Evolution in the past few years in the industry
The Indian market’s beauty sector has undergone tremendous development in recent years. Movies, web series, social media, and TV shows have contributed significantly to its evolution. Moreover, beauty pageants like Miss World, Miss Universe, and many others have contributed to elevating the need for such beauty products in the minds of the consumer. As history has it, the perfume, makeup, and skincare industries breed a lot of gender bias. However, a large portion of the male population nowadays applies serums and practices skincare and night care routines in their day-to-day life. Many influencers have also contributed to setting new trends for the beauty and skincare industry. It has become a common phenomenon in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. But in Tier 3 and other small-town regions, the change in people’s behavior towards beauty products is still underway. Alongside, the grooming sector is anticipated to expand as tier 3 cities aspire to adopt the lifestyle of larger cities.
4 Business-to-Customer Success Factors
One must first clearly define their business’s goals and the products they want to offer their clients. Since every cosmetics brand offers similar content within a bottle or box, your brand story is the second thing you want to sell. Delivering a seamless purchasing experience comes in third. Fourth in terms of customer feedback is the post-purchase services. In e-commerce, customer reviews and loyalty reward systems are critical since they impact the brand’s reputation long-term.
How did the company raise funding, or are you looking forward to the same?
At present, we are a self-funded business. We need help with IT in addition to those presented by AI and unconventional technologies. Once we resolve that and witness 20–30k visitors daily on our website, we will consider raising some investment rounds. We have a couple of inquiries that we will look into once we have resolved the minor issues.
Explain B2C Outlook: Post Covid-19 Scenario by 2030.
After the pandemic, the world has changed drastically. People’s perception of life, unpredictable challenges, and grit to accept the new normal have made them take things the way they are. It is observed that the turnaround ratio of people has reinvigorated overall economic growth. Individuals are now shelling out a great deal of money for personal care. They are investing more in their health and giving it equal importance alongside savings. All of this has proven to be a boon for many B2C and D2C brands, as the purchasing power of individuals, especially towards health and wellness, has increased.
Why did you choose this industry over any other space?
According to our research and understanding, e-commerce is expected to grow by about 26% by 2025. Given this, many brands, regardless of their business size, are open to multiple opportunities to establish a foothold in India. That’s where our company’s brand purpose of providing equal opportunity to all small, medium, and prominent players in the market comes into play. We want to offer these top-notch products and the rarest of finds to our Indian audience at their fingertips.
Do you like participating in CSR initiatives, and what motivates you?
Of course, we’d like to participate in CSR initiatives and give back to the community. Engaging in CSR entails that we’re willing to operate in ways that benefit society and the environment within the ordinary course of business. We are firm believers in the givers gain tribe. But for now, our primary goal is to reach a larger audience. In addition, once we have established a decent track record of offering equal opportunity to all brands and individuals, the next step would be to provide service to our society through various CSR activities.
Inspiring quote for aspiring youth.
If you strongly desire to work in a particular field but are concerned about the outcome, my advice is to begin experimenting. After you try, test, and evaluate it, diving deeper into it becomes a calculated decision. It is important to remember that someone else’s experience or advice should never be the sole reason for making a decision. Different people have different experiences. Rather than dwelling on someone else’s opinion, find yourself a more substantial reason to be the foundation of your subsequent decision.
Meet Jatakia, Director of Branding & Marketing at Cossouq
