Luxury E-commerce Indian Start-up, Brandmile, Profits Within 10 Months

Luxury goods tend to be tough for many wallets to handle. But Brandmile, an e-commerce start-up in India, found a way to make luxury goods (more) affordable by buying up last season’s inventory from luxury brands and selling it online to its consumers. Even with a marked up price, users can still enjoy up to 70 percent discounts off of the original prices.

The e-commerce site, or the “shopping club” as it calls itself, is exclusive and private. In other words, interested folks need to apply before they can shop on Brandmile.

The results have been great. It first started out in June 2010, and within ten months Brandmile became profitable. It now has offices in Mumbai and Noida. Brandmile currently has a total of 150,000 users. Co-founder Dirk van Quaquebeke told me a little more about it:

Brandmile was launched as one of few private shopping clubs in India. We have double digit month-on-month growth at the moment and has achieved profitability in less than ten months.

According to Dirk, this business model is well known in other markets. And as Dirk was previously in the venture capital industry, he said he understood quite a bit of the economics and processes. He adds:

Initially we wanted to start off as a dual set-up in the UK and India but quickly went full-time on India due to rising demand for branded goods and macro-economic trends [in the country].

Brandmile isn’t just going to stay put, be satisfied, and milk its current profits. I learned that the e-commerce start-up is now ready to expand aggressively after it has concluded its current round of funding.

When asked about Brandmile’s future plans, Dirk remained tight lipped but told me that they will have some big announcement at the end of this year. Stay tuned.