CampusMall: Merchandising Your College Memories

Education sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. From preschools to higher education institutes, all are trying to keep pace with this trend, says Ankur Gupta, CEO of CampusMall.in, in an interview with Elets New Network (ENN) and tells how consistently school meets its students-parents’ expectations add to the brand value of that institute. Excerpts:

What is the inspiration behind CampusMall’s coming into existence? CampusMall was created to cater to a basic need among students and alumni across the country – the need to express love, pride and affection for our beloved schools where we have had the time of our lives.

What inspired you to get into the concept of licensing education memorabilia?
Our personal experiences (Co-founders – Ankur Gupta, Arpit Badjatya, and Siddharth Badjatiya) during college days in the US led us to start this journey five years ago. We were intrigued by the easy access to merchandise with college insignia on it. Students everywhere were flaunting their college pride as part of everyday life. We wanted to enable that access among schools and college communities in India.

What education segments do you majorly focus on?
Our services capture the complete education spectrum from pre-primary to higher education. The online merchandise programme is available for any institute looking to build a strong emotional connect among its community via a trendy merchandise programme, whereas the uniform programme is more popular among k-12 schools across India.

How has your business evolved in the last five years?
Pride-wear eStores is a nascent business in India where alumni are not accustomed to finding a store selling memorabilia for their alma mater. We continue to build the culture around flaunting school – college pride as part of your everyday life.

Over time we expanded our offering to cater to the highly fragmented school uniform segment. Our spectrum of services ranges from a time someone enters a school or college as a student to the time they graduate and thereafter as a lifelong alumni. CampusMall brings a well-rounded offering of uniforms and pride wear to represent the love people have for their alma mater.

How do you compare your services to the local vendor access schools enjoy across India?
CampusMall is uniquely positioned to be the one-stop shop for all uniform and merchandise requirements. We found pain points in the procurement eco-system widespread across schools in India, whereby the vendors lack in consistency in quality of apparels year after year, in reliability of service and timely delivery and in professional approach in understanding the needs of the school.

The above discovery is central to our offerings. Our objective is to organise the school uniform / merchandise procurement experience to ensure that you have a reliable vendor supplying quality products consistently. The scale, exposure, and expertise that we bring to bear is unmatched by local vendor network. From designing to delivery of final product, our team of experts helps to delivering the final product on campus. We can suggest alternative products / designs to consider, or enhance their current offering in style, quality and economy of procurement.

What is your vision for merchandise in India?
We envision CampusMall to be of exceptional standard for merchandise and uniforms among schools and colleges in India. We want to be licensed merchandiser for 1500+ premiere institutes in the next three years while serving them as their one-stop shop for all uniforms requirements.

How does a school sign up for your services?
We have created a zero-hassle process whereby a school can authorise Campus- Mall as their official merchandisers via a licensing agreement for a nominal onboarding fee. We take care of everything from designing to production, inventory management to marketing and logistics along with post sale services. There is real time tracking of all orders through an admin credentials for the institute. To top it off, there is royalties for every sale on the eStore designed as a way for alumni to give back to their alma mater. All in all it is a win-win arrangement for institutes, students and alumni.

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