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Light studio.

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Hello, and welcome to Open For Business

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series on The Inspiring Talk podcast. In

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this series, I bring you stories

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of some of the homegrown small

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and medium businesses. These

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stories are representative of the countless

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small and medium businesses in the

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country that plays a key role

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in the overall economic growth of

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India. By celebrating these businesses,

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I hope to inspire you to

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start and scale your business.

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In each episode, you will hear the stories

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of building businesses, strategies

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and innovations, that are helping

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these brands to grow their revenue

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and impact the lives of people

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associated with them.

0:56

Amiibo's Visikoto, and in today's episode,

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how Kunal Rhotari from Fos

1:01

lighting took his three generations

1:03

old lighting business to the next

1:05

level by leveraging the power of

1:07

the Internet. Kunal Rotagi

1:10

launched the brand Fos lighting in

1:12

two thousand and ten. This is the third

1:14

generation family run business

1:16

since nineteen fifty. They work with artisans

1:19

all over the country who use locally

1:21

sourced raw materials. They design,

1:23

manufacture, and supply decorative

1:26

lighting. Across the country

1:28

and are one of the early adopters of

1:30

online marketplaces. Today,

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they have an offline presence in DELIANZIA

1:35

with three stores while their

1:38

online sale surpasses offline

1:40

sales. Let's edit from Kunal

1:42

on what clicked for them. Welcome

1:51

to the show. Thank you, Vijay. It's

1:54

nice to be in the show. Could I

1:56

share with us a bit about Lighting? How

1:58

long have you been in the market and what's been the traction

2:00

so far? Okay. We have

2:02

seen in this retail business, basically,

2:04

we choose seats in nineteen fifty.

2:07

And it's only been in

2:10

Johnny Charles started by my grandfather

2:12

and and the third generation. And

2:14

when I came after my

2:17

studies, I had a habit of,

2:19

you know, buying everything online, and

2:21

that was very new to the Indian

2:23

market. So I just thought, okay, if

2:25

in other

2:27

markets people are buying online, why

2:30

shouldn't we try? We have everything.

2:32

We have we back it. Why not

2:34

just give it a try. And the

2:36

industry is booming in at that time

2:38

in India. So we started

2:40

listing people up. We

2:42

created a website. We started missing

2:44

product on a different platform. The

2:47

response was good, low. But

2:50

it was then eventually

2:52

we started seeing volume coming.

2:56

We got more confident and

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we thought of, you know,

3:00

just pushing it more. So

3:03

it's been a wonderful journey until

3:05

then. Interesting. So lighting

3:07

products like chandler and

3:09

labs are fragile products. What are

3:11

some of the challenges you faced in

3:14

the production and delivery of these products?

3:16

They were challenging. But like

3:19

I said, we are in this industry for a long

3:21

time, and we have been sending material to

3:24

all over India. That was pretty

3:27

online error, I would say. But

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we knew how to pack but we only we

3:32

didn't know how to formalize it to in

3:34

an organized So we had

3:36

a team set up for that formalized

3:38

things on how to pack each

3:41

that we need to take. Same thing,

3:43

but more a noted down

3:45

way of doing things. So

3:47

anyone any new person comes at

3:50

we can, you know, do the same thing,

3:52

follow the same procedure. And

3:55

the way we do packing is we use

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lot of chillers, wafer

3:59

grades. And just

4:01

so the product doesn't move. The only

4:03

thing what we found is, no matter what you

4:05

use, bubble, thermal

4:07

coal, whatever you wanna use, the

4:09

trick is the product should not move

4:11

or should not rattle in the box.

4:14

It should be like a frozen thing. Imagine

4:16

something frozen. Just stay in

4:18

that way. It will not break it on.

4:20

So our breakage is less

4:22

than one percent. We hardly

4:24

get any complaints from our customer.

4:27

Whether we do it for any any whether

4:29

we do it for retail packaging or

4:31

Korea Surface Transport.

4:33

It does not. And we said

4:35

we do the same kind of packing, and we

4:37

send it to our showrooms in Hyderabad,

4:40

Bangalore anyway. Or to

4:42

any custom. Only

4:44

formalizing things and procedure,

4:46

making procedure probably you want to understand that

4:48

was challenge? Those

4:50

are really great insights, Kunal, having

4:52

a defined system for

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anybody to follow. Definitely

4:57

ensures the repeatable result,

4:59

like you said, less than one percent

5:02

breakage rate for the

5:05

products like lights is

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really commendable. What's been your journey

5:09

of taking products online and how

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adopting digital has helped your

5:13

brand? The journey is

5:15

not complete. I don't think it will

5:17

ever be complete. And

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we are trying a bit to adapt to

5:23

ever changing digital ecosystem.

5:25

So the technology changes very fast,

5:27

but they are e e commerce

5:30

platforms like Amazon. Has

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helped us reach park owners of India

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and the world. We do get

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few orders from other countries as

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well. Which we are happy about.

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And that's the thing about

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technology is that I mean, just

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by sitting in one warehouse, you

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actually won't know where we are setting

5:50

or and but our product

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is everywhere. We

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have reached to every corner. It's

5:58

it's a kind of online platforms

6:00

what they are providing

6:02

us. So with that, we

6:04

get more volume and more reach.

6:07

In fact, our online

6:09

sales surpassed our offline sales,

6:12

which is I would pay more

6:14

than more than double. So

6:17

at this point, I don't have a

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workflow, but I'm I'm trying to think

6:21

forward, but It totally flipped

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initially. We were more focused on

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a retail outlet, and

6:28

online platform was more of, like,

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a repetition. We get, you

6:32

know, few orders from here and there.

6:35

But now, it's at all around.

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It's more we are focusing

6:39

on online sales and having a

6:41

showroom is just like

6:43

an advertisement. Mhmm. You

6:45

have a store in some cities to go

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to have. It's a good to have. It's

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not a requirement. It's just a present.

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What I would say, what something

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of, you know, you look and go and feel the

6:55

product, but actually, you will buy it on I

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go and see the product. Like,

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we all are doing it. I think when we buy

7:01

other things. We go see the product, but we

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actually we are doing buying it from

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our home that night whenever we

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are comfortable. So that's

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what happened. That's a great insight. And

7:11

I think the brands that use

7:14

the omnichannel approach of

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being present offline

7:18

and also online are probably

7:21

gonna win in the longer term because

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online gives you the ease of ordering

7:25

from your home, and it's great

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to hear how going online your

7:29

brand was not only able to grow,

7:31

but also surpass offline

7:33

sales. And this is the last episode

7:35

of our series. And with

7:37

every episode, my belief in the

7:39

power of taking brand online has

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only strengthened. I was surprised

7:44

to hear that freestyle products

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often considered that

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people want to buy offline also something

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that people are shopping online, which is interesting.

7:52

Right? And this is a great validation

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for a lot of brands. Still thinking

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of going online and leveraging the

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wide distribution platforms

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like Amazon offer. Takunal,

8:04

can you share with us

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three key factors that

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have really helped you grow your business?

8:11

There are many. I would say purchase

8:14

understanding we started

8:16

with in India. So I think I understand

8:18

it in India. And we

8:21

are knowing in customer one. They

8:23

want everything. They want quality. They

8:26

want their price

8:28

conscious. Everything. And quality.

8:31

They want best design of

8:33

product. They want everything there.

8:35

So we design our own product. So

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our design reflects what we

8:40

all like and we have something

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that every Indian would like and they

8:44

have. That's one.

8:47

And the kind of material what we

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use, that's the second one.

8:51

And the there are few other,

8:53

like, availability or

8:55

stop. And customization.

8:58

And spare part, there's so many. I won't

9:00

say, I mean, availability is

9:02

also a key factor for us. And

9:04

providing pairs to our

9:06

customer when when something

9:08

goes wrong. For example,

9:10

we Indian see the

9:13

like to take care of a product. We

9:15

hang the chandelier or a wall

9:17

light. For your something

9:20

breaks, I need I will not

9:22

replace it. With a new

9:24

one. I would like, you know, I would like I

9:26

know maybe if I can get a spare

9:28

part of that same one. That'll

9:30

be very nice. So

9:32

we are able to provide that to our

9:34

customers. Also, could you share with our

9:36

listeners the biggest challenges you

9:38

have faced while scaling your

9:40

generational business and some of

9:42

the lessons that you've learned from that. The

9:44

biggest challenge was to have, you know, well

9:46

defined for feature. And we

9:48

didn't have a QC team, which

9:50

is very important

9:52

when you are doing

9:55

tail on any online platform

9:57

because customers are

9:59

not there to check the product. They are not

10:01

in front of you. They haven't seen the

10:03

product. So what we are showing

10:05

them on pictures, they should get

10:08

received the same product. So having

10:11

UC Teams place, and

10:13

train them, which is useful to

10:15

mitigate things like

10:17

return cases like return

10:19

product is not matching the picture.

10:22

And we don't want battery beam.

10:25

That's, I think, the

10:27

biggest scary

10:29

part of online

10:31

dot com. Mhmm. So

10:33

customer no. They have

10:35

they all already worked online.

10:38

So if I buy something, I know I

10:40

would like to see, you know, a good

10:42

review. So more people can buy. So

10:44

so for that, I need to send a

10:46

good product. For the kind of

10:48

product I need to, you know, make sure

10:51

whatever I'm showing them, they should receive the

10:53

exact same thing. So

10:56

that was the big selling, but

10:58

now it's part of our

11:00

nature. We just do it

11:02

in twelve years and

11:04

we are pretty good at it. It's interesting

11:06

how you say that being

11:08

an online seller, it's

11:10

important to ensure

11:13

that there are no bad reviews, and you

11:15

mentioned that send them the

11:17

product that you have shown in the

11:19

image that you posted, in listing

11:21

pays, two quick tips that you wanna

11:23

share, two other online

11:25

sellers who might be listening to avoid

11:27

bad reviews. Provide

11:29

bad reviews is the only way

11:31

you can get is you are not showing

11:34

you are not attending what you are showing.

11:36

Mhmm. And the description should

11:39

whatever you wanna send, just

11:41

be true to it. If you are selling

11:43

anything, the

11:46

material. The description should specify because

11:48

you are not there to explain them

11:51

on phone, over the counter,

11:53

nothing. So

11:55

they are reading, they are seeing, and they

11:57

are reading. And

12:00

whatever you wanna put

12:02

just put over and back the item

12:04

they should get. Material

12:06

color or whatever you want to

12:08

describe the product. Nicely

12:12

and to the point, no

12:14

embellishment required. No

12:16

fancy word, nothing. Just That's

12:18

that's very basic. So

12:20

what's next for false lighting? What are some of the

12:22

goals that you're looking at achieving in the

12:24

next few years? We are good in P2C

12:27

sales, and it's

12:29

been very long since

12:31

finding fifty. We are doing retail

12:33

sales to our no P2C

12:35

even on that point, we are

12:37

focused on B2C. But now, like I

12:39

said, we because

12:41

of the reach, we

12:43

do get some orders

12:45

from other countries. So

12:48

we would like, you know, have

12:50

a team to start only

12:52

b to b. Scale

12:54

and capture

12:57

more international market

12:59

that the plan is for now. Super

13:01

all the best with everything that you are doing,

13:04

Kunal. And thank you so much for being at the

13:06

show today. Thank you.

13:08

It's been really nice. Thank

13:10

you. Thank

13:13

you so much

13:15

for listening to this episode of Open

13:18

Business series on the inspiring top podcast.

13:20

I hope you got inspired by

13:22

Kunal's story of

13:24

scaling fast lighting. As an

13:26

innovator, end makers, Sometimes

13:28

we focus too much on just creating

13:30

and making as we are very passionate

13:33

about it. Marketing and taking

13:35

products to customers can

13:37

sound very daunting. Being open and

13:39

exploring platforms and tools

13:41

available to us like Amazon,

13:43

can significantly take a load of marketing

13:45

sales and distribution, marketing

13:47

sales and distribution off your

13:49

shoulder so that you can focus on what

13:51

you are good at building.

13:54

Thanks again for listening to this episode. If you

13:56

enjoyed listening to this, share

13:58

this story with people in your

14:00

network. You never know the story

14:02

might just inspire them to start their own

14:04

business. I hope this series

14:06

inspired you to chase your dream.

14:09

Build products, and build you on business.

14:11

Now, it's your turn to go

14:13

out there and do something

14:16

inspiring.