Radhika Aggarwal is a successful entrepreneur who has over a decade of experience in various fields like fashion, lifestyle, marketing, and public relations
Radhika Aggarwal’s early life and career
Radhika Aggarwal is an Indian Entrepreneur and one of the first women to join the unicorn club. Aggarwal was born into an Army family. Her father served in the Indian Army and her mother devoted her life to being a dietician. Aggarwal spent most of her early life, especially her schooling, shifting from place to place. The Co-founder of ShopClues states that this experience of moving from place to place constantly has proved beneficial in many ways and this enabled her to persevere in any situation and become adaptable.
Aggarwal’s father took retirement from his service in the Indian Army at the age of 45 and resolved to start a health club in 1992. Aggarwal took the opportunity and started her career as a fitness trainer. The co-founder of ShopClues was inspired by her father’s entrepreneurial mind and subsequently started her first advertising agency in the year 1997. Aggarwal claims that there was a dearth of options in Chandigarh to pursue any other enterprising passion other than advertising.
Subsequently, Radhika Aggarwal decided to pursue an MBA and moved to the United States to earn her MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. In due course, Aggarwal also got her postgraduate degree in the field of advertising and public relations.
Aggarwal started her professional career at Goldman Sachs in the marketing department. She soon moved to Nordstrom. Her shift to Nordstrom helped her acquire the skills necessary for jump-starting a start-up. She picked up the strategy of Inverted Pyramid while employed at Nordstrom. Aggarwal took a maternity leave and after her break decided to start her own business named Fashion Clues. With Fashion Clues’ website, Aggarwal streamlined the servicing of the fashion and lifestyle needs of clientele in the United States and South Asia.
ShopClues and its inception:
During the initial stages of floating her start-up called ShopClues, Radhika amassed a wealth of experience that she rightfully utilised to start ShopClues with her husband Sandeep Aggarwal, and Sanjay Sethi in the year 2011, starting with just 10 members when they built the company from the ground up. Later, ShopClues entered the unicorn club and Radhika Aggarwal was the first women founder in the unicorn club.
ShopClues is headquartered in Gurgaon. When ShopClues entered the market, Amazon still had not ventured into the Indian marketplace. This gave ShopClues enough space to excel in its domain. The business was valued at 1.1 billion dollars and achieved unicorn status in 2016. ShopClues is recognized as the fourth Indian company in the unicorn club.
The rapid growth of the digital economy has enabled various enterprising individuals to venture into building a start-up. ShopClues’ success can be mainly attributed to its inception and its targeted clientele. The business was successful in offering a wide range of products at a lower price, thereby tapping into the price-sensitive demographic of the Indian marketplace. The company’s business model was unique at the time of its inception as it sourced products and goods directly from manufacturers. This led to a decrease in prices as the intermediaries were eliminated in this model and the products reached the customers with less hassle. ShopClues took initiatives to bring close to 60k sellers on their platform. The company sought to empower organisations by helping them connect digitally.
Radhika Aggarwal’s tenure at Nordstrom helped her learn many valuable skills required for building the business from scratch and understanding customer needs. ShopClues was founded with the aim of providing a seamless shopping experience while factoring in the prices of consumer goods. ShopClues built a website that became easier to navigate by categorising and making its website user-friendly. ShopClues focused on seller empowerment, and affordable pricing, factors that contributed to its success in the e-commerce sector. ShopClues was successful in receiving funding from various companies such as Tiger Global, Helion Ventures, and Nexus Venture partners.
ShopClues was en route to floating an IPO, but the plan fell through as some differences cropped up between the foundational members following the arrest of Sandeep Aggarwal. With competition in the market rising due to the introduction of Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm, amongst others, ShopClues was not able to keep up with the competition. In a market where Snapdeal, Flipkart, and Amazon India had already become household names, staying afloat was close to impossible.
Radhika Aggarwal is now onto her next venture Kindlife, highlighting the fact that she has not left her enterprising ambitions behind.
Accolades:
Aggarwal won many awards for her exemplary commitment and success in the e-commerce sector. Some of them are:
Outlook Businesswoman of Worth at Outlook Business Awards (2016).
Woman Entrepreneur of the Year at Entrepreneur India Awards (2016).
Exemplary Woman Entrepreneur of the Year at CMO Asia Awards (2016).
CEO of the Year Award at CEO India Awards (2016).
ShopClues startup venture serves as an insightful case study for aspiring enterprisers. Radhika Aggarwal, through her persistence in ensuring that her business is customer-centric, rendered ShopClues a haven for consumers across India.
