Style seekers

Who says you need to hire a stylist to be ahead of the fashion curve? There’s plenty of help around for tech-savvy fashionistas. Recently launched website 20Dresses.com has over 60,000 active users who shop online regularly. What draws them back to the portal is its online styling and personal recommendation service. “Customers interact with our style experts and get real-time suggestions on what products suit their needs,” says Sumant Kasliwal of the portal.

Voonik.com isn’t far behind. “Each product is hand-picked by our experts and is recommended only to those whom it would suit. This is India’s first online personal shopping assistant,” claims Sujayath Ali of the website. Another concept is that of StyleCracker.com, which offers a range of basic and premium styling packages to its customers. “Currently, stylists charge anywhere between R10,000-R1,00,000 per day. We provide a platform where people can ask fashion-related queries and our stylists will reply within minutes, 24x7,” says Dhimaan Shah of the website.

Kasliwal believes that the trend stems from the fact that customers dislike huge, cluttered lists of products on e-commerce websites. “They only want to see what would suit their needs. Every customer is unique, with different styling needs and body types. We keep this in mind while recommending products on the website,” he says.

Mukul Bafana of Jabong.com says, “People pick up trends from magazines, Internet, movies, etc and imitate the same, which could be a disaster if it doesn’t suit them.” Consumer queries on each of these portals are also similar. “People want to know what to wear according to their body type,” says Bafana. Shah adds, “Many questions revolve around work wear and budget shopping.” On Voonik.com, Ali says that customers want to know what to wear for occasions like weddings and conferences.