Craftsvilla cements growth trajectory with latest buy – clothes rental F2SO4

Leading marketplace for ethnic apparel and accessories, Craftsvilla, has purchased F2SO4, a company that rents out designer clothes. F2SO4 also provides tailoring services. The integration seems to be complete, with the F2SO4 site directly leading to Craftsvilla’s home page.

Tailoring, fitting & wedding planning services in the anvil

Manoj Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Craftsvilla is optimistic about the future of service-based marketplaces. He says,

“Many services marketplaces will emerge between 2016- 2020. These could include something as basic as tailoring to as advanced as wedding planners. We see stitching as an important peripheral ethnic service for our customer experience and we see lot of post purchase demand around this from our customers. F2SO4’s sizing and fitting service was a big draw for us to acquire them.”

Amrit Singh, co-founder of F2SO4, says of the acquisition,

“At F2SO4 we always dreamed of becoming agents who enabled experimentation and rich experiences, and I am glad we are realising our vision with our customised sizing and fitting solutions.”

Craftsvilla on acquisition spree

In the recent past, Craftsvilla has bought companies including Sendd and PlaceofOrigin. Both acquisitions were in February 2016. Sendd is a logistics start-up with tie-ups with nearly 25 logistics companies. Post the acquisition Sendd continues to operate on its own through its app, and has clients apart from Craftsvilla.

PlaceofOrigin sells ethnic foods including pickles, snacks, jams and sweets. Manoj Gupta said,

“We are looking to capture the ethnic market and this year the time looks good for acquisitions and growth.”

Both acquisitions appear to be with the intention of propelling primary and secondary ecommerce features. With the latest buy of F2SO4, it shows that Craftsvilla has a clear plan in mind, and is heading towards attaining monopoly in the ethnic sector. The etailer is not content with apparel alone; it has also stepped into traditional foods. This shows that Craftsvilla has chartered its map for the road ahead.