Enamor scales up to 5X growth online, post pandemic: Sandra Daniels

Brand Enamor was launched in 2001 as the result of a joint venture between Gokaldas Images Pvt Ltd and Barbara of Paris. Since 2003, Enamor has focussed its efforts on offering its customers a wide range of internationally styled lingerie, in innovative designs that offer exceptional comfort and fit. Their collection also includes a range of wardrobe must-haves under the brand name – Essentials, Athleisure, Sportswear and Shapewear that offers unmatched support.

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In a bid to sustainable future Enamor has embarked on a sustainable and ethical fashion journey. Being a responsible apparel brand, Enamor wants to offer consumers more than fashion and style, and play its part in creating a more sustainable fashion industry that can really make a difference to the environment. Enamor aims to reform the way it creates lingerie, using materials that are eco-friendly.

In a free-wheeling conversation, Sandra Daniels, Vice President, Enamor, speaks to Adgully on the importance of sustainability in the garment industry and how their company is moving in that direction. Apart from sustainability, Daniels also speaks about the overall strategy of the company in terms of marketing and online sales, as well as how they are engaging with their audiences during the pandemic times. 

Enamor has been focussing on driving sustainability in every step. When was this initiative started and could you elaborate on the thinking and the vision behind embracing this initiative?

The Fashion and Apparel industry is one of the many industries that contribute to the environmental crisis. Enamor realises the need for a sustainable future and has, therefore, embarked on a sustainable and ethical fashion journey. We have started putting in efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and have started taking steps towards a sustainable future under our project – ‘Respecting you and the Planet’.

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Being a responsible apparel brand, Enamor wants to offer consumers more than fashion and style. We want to play our part in creating a more sustainable fashion industry that can really make a difference to the environment. Enamor aims to reform the way we create lingerie, using materials that are eco-friendly. To make this possible, we have introduced styles with sustainable fabrics like organic cotton, Dope Dye, Agion and SeaCell. With our messaging of ‘Respecting you and the Planet’, we are aiming to build an ecosystem that caters to customers keeping the environment in mind. This also is manifested in our range of eco-friendly best basic products that require 85% less water consumption, 64% less electricity, 86% less steam and give out 84% less CO2 emissions.

Enamor is continuously finding newer ways to render planet-friendly products that reduce the consumption of water, energy, and other resources, reduces the carbon footprint and uses advanced eco-friendly substances to avoid toxic waste. For us, sustainability is central every step of the way: from sourcing raw materials to environmentally-friendly practices in manufacturing which minimise the impact on the environment. 

How do the sustainability efforts of the company help the end products that the company is offering and in what way does it benefit the customer?

Enamor’s products are created with a focus on comfort and meeting customers’ needs. We have begun to include and launch eco-friendly products in our portfolio, and we are committed to strengthen the range and offering. We use ‘eco-melange’, which is a patented water-less process of pre-drying the cloth fibers. We also use Dope Dyed Polyamide in our products that has low water consumption and low CO2 emission as opposed to normal polyamide. Incorporating the advantages of energy saving, water saving, and emission reduction in their production offer more sustainable products with an improved eco balance, compared to conventional dyeing.

We incorporate SeaCell fiber, which is completely biodegradable and its antimicrobial properties come from natural seaweed. We built an Agion treatment to fight odor. Agion is a dual-action technology that not only provides antimicrobial product protection and industrial-strength odor elimination, but also eliminates odors on and around the fabric. 

How has the pandemic impacted your category, and as a company what steps and strategy have you employed to navigate during these tough times?

Certainly, the pandemic had impacted the business in terms of offline sales. Last year, during the initial lockdown, we all witnessed a temporary pause in business – both online and offline. We also experienced supply chain disruptions when COVID-19 first hit the global market.

Over the last one year, there has been a significant rise in the number of consumers moving to online shopping and, therefore, our key strategy now is to strengthen our business in the online space. Being a brand that has strong equity with the customers – the customers are now seeking us on the e-commerce platforms. We are now focused on creating a great shopping experience online, as close as we can to the touch and feel experience.

Moreover, we also widened our product portfolio relevant to the current times with our newest addition of Masks. Our primary focus was on the protection provided, followed by the comfort and aesthetics of the masks. In fact, these masks have contributed to nearly 4%-5% of the revenue during its peak demand. However, the fashion and occasion wear categories are dull since people no longer step out. 

Did you witness any exponential growth in your e-commerce business as reaching the last mile was a huge challenge? Have you introduced any new omni-channels to reach your customers?

The approach that we adopted to manage this crisis was to opt for the online channel. Our  contribution to  business is projected to scale up from 5% to 25-30%, in the post pandemic scenario. Our revenue generation pre-pandemic from the online channel was 5%-7%, however, this massively increased to nearly 25% in May 2021. While we have been available through our website since 2009, we have partnered with more online channels and are now available at Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, Nykaa, Nykaa Fashion, Tata Cliq, and Ajio. We have witnessed an increasing online demand from Tier 2 and 3 cities. 

Over the years, how have you embraced technology and how that has influenced your approach to marketing?

The apparel and fashion industry is leveraging technology at its best and Enamor is no exception to this. As a brand, we believe in connecting with our consumers and understanding their needs. Analytics helps us in tracking the choices made by the consumer in the past, say, the number of clicks on the type of styles and time spent on the page, etc. This enables a seamless process of gaining consumer insights and innovating our products.

We use advanced technology to create products that are innovative and one of a kind. Our key focus is comfort and, therefore, we use Fab Comfy 5 technology in our bras, which focuses on the 5 most important attributes to provide confort, namely – gentle support, soft hold straps, flexi-grip elastic, giving perfect shape and coverage. Enamor believes that the secret to being fabulous begins with comfortable and beautiful lingerie that make women look and feel their fabulous best every day. We deeply focus on customer comfort and specific customer needs in our diverse athleisure range. Our use of advanced technology enables our four-way stretch athleisure garments to dry faster, has antimicrobial finishes and ensures protection from odour. 

What kind of communication strategy worked for you in the last one year? Was there any need to revisit the tone, style and messaging for your entire gamut of products?

As a brand, Enamor celebrates the essence of women, their beliefs and zest for life, their inner and outer beauty. Enamor has invested heavily in conducting research, not only to understand  the habits, usage and attitudes of women across different ages, groups and ethnicities, but also to understand body shapes and sizes. This is to ensure that every style meets the body requirements of every Indian woman. Without putting women in stringent brackets of ideal body types, Enamor is focused on creating an experience that lets every woman feel fabulous inside and out, every day.

We believe that all women are born fabulous and our campaigns celebrate women from all walks of life, no matter their size, shape or quirks. In our earlier campaigns – ‘Fabulous as I am’ and ‘We are all fabulous’ – we have captured the self-admiring spirit of Indian women and the specialness they seek.

Keeping with the theme of the brand positioning, our latest campaign is ‘Fabulous Everyday’, which celebrates the woman of today and the various roles that she plays. The campaign showcases being fabulous every single moment of every day and being comfortable and stylish in everything she does, be it in the boardroom or on the dance floor.

Over the last year, consumers have spent a lot of time indoors working from home, and their choices have shifted to favouring casual or leisure wear. Our campaign is focussed on ‘comfort’, because that is what women seek in their lingerie.

With all our campaigns, Enamor has been paving the way for women to feel empowered, supported and understood – a proposition that has worked well and has proven to be successful for the brand. 

What has been your engagement and media strategy to reach your audience? How did you keep your brand top of mind to generate sales for your products?

As a brand, we have focused our energies on the digital medium. We are strengthening our digital presence by making our brand visible and our products available on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, Nykaa and Nykaa Fashion among others. In addition to this, we have also increased our messaging and content on key social media platforms to keep our customers engaged. We are present on TV and OOH mediums, as they continue to remain relevant for us given their reach. 

For any business, customer centricity is important and we have to ensure that we evolve and change our strategies based on what our customers seek and where they seek it.