Online Eyewear Startup Glassic Goes Brick & Mortar, Opens First Retail Store in Bangalore

Bangalore-based eyewear startup brand Glassic, which designs and manufactures high quality, designer sunglasses, inaugurated its flagship store at Indiranagar, Bengaluru. The grand opening of 'Glassic's store' was marked by the presence of fashion guru Prasad Bidapa who had a tête-à-tête with fashion enthusiasts and other guests present at the event. In addition to being available online for close to 3 years, the retail store will now enable people to explore and try out the latest Glassic eyewear from more than 200 designs.

Owned and operated by Glassic Eyewear Pvt. Ltd, Glassic is a private label fashion eyewear brand that
designs and manufactures eyewear in-house. Glassic is funded by a group of angel networks which
includes The Chennai Angels, Lead Angels and LetsVenture.

[caption id="attachment_124931" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Glassics new flagship store at 12th Main, Indiranagar[/caption]

Co-founded by brothers Kailash and Devesh Nichani in 2015, Glassic makes high quality designer eyewear affordable to masses with superior emphasis on quality than competitors. Talking at the launch, Kailash Nichani said, " We are excited to launch our flagship store in the heart of Bengaluru. We identify latest trends and our impeccable attention to detail coupled with inhouse manufacturing, we strive to offer the best quality, great-looking eyewear at a reasonable price. Our first store will be an extension of our mission to delight customers with durable fashion and affordability in eyewear segment.” The founders claim they offer one-year warranty to Glassic products owing to the quality promise.

As per industry estimates, about 550 million people in the country need reading glasses, but only 170 million people wear them.

Going brick-and-mortar ensures the e-tailers do not lose their customers in any space -- either online or offline.

An another prominent online eyewear retailer Lenskart is also in process of capturing offline market through its own brick-and-mortar stores. Backed by Unilazer Ventures and Premji Invest, Lenskart currently has over 200 stores across India.

In recent couple of years, it is seen that Indian e-commerce players, in a reverse trend, are now expanding their platforms to brick-and-mortar outlets aka physical stores in a bid to curb higher marketing costs and cater to diverse customer needs in a highly competitive market.

According to a report by the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), India's retail market is expected to nearly double to $1 trillion by 2020 from $600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts.

[Reference - FirstPost]