In The World Of Expensive And Harmful Cosmetics, This Oxford Alumnus With Co-founders Launched Vanity Wagon, A Clean Beauty Marketplace

• BySheetal Sidhu     |    July 2, 2021

“For the last two years we have all experienced ups and downs but it becomes quite important to stay positive and follow your passion,” Prateek Ruhail, Founder, Vanity Wagon while in an elaborate and engaging interview with Startup Story.

The Founder’s Journey

Prateek Ruhail hails from a defence family; he completed his graduation from ILS, Pune where he earned a law degree, furthering his interest in the banking sector he dived into it. Later, he moved to Delhi to help his father post retirement with an education enterprise, that is when he realized his inclination towards business and strategy, in order to pursue his newfound interest he moved to gain an MBA degree from Oxford. On his return by the end 2017, he started working on the idea of Vanity Wagon, a clean beauty marketplace which was brought live within a time span of 10 months and was in the market first in September, 2018.

Spark Of An Idea

The idea to set up Vanity Wagon started shaping way before Prateek came back to India, during his time in the UK. Introducing his Co-founder Naina, Prateek told Startup Story that being an influencer and a beauty expert who had pursued a couple of courses in the field in London, they observed and came to conclude that the consumers were becoming educated and more receptive  towards the non-toxic and clean beauty products surfacing in the market. With awareness and the market for these brands slowly building up, a space was emerging where the customers were switching to brands with expensive quality. On conducting a research in the Indian market they saw the presence of such brands and decided to create a platform facilitating them, adding value to the brands, helping them grow and creating a one stop platform for the customers. Beauty is a growing segment with a huge market and introducing a global Indian platform for the same became the ultimate goal and roadmap for Vanity Wagon founders.

 

Launching Into The Market, Introduction To Vanity Wagon

Reminiscing about the time they first launched Prateek said, ” Back in the day there were numerous brands that were producing clean, toxic free products, however, it was difficult to trace them and invite them to partner and engage on the platform.” They have 120 brands on board with them at the moment, having started with only 10. Once they came into notice, brands began endorsing them and the platform grew, Prateek told Startup Story that “besides our own growth, we have seen these clean beauty brands grow immensely, following phenomenal journeys.” Prateek is quite sure that most of these brands will grow exponentially in the near future.

Criteria To Register Brands

As the number of frauds around the beauty market and claims are increasing, Startup Story felt right to ask Prateek about the procedure followed to register brands on their platform. To which Prateek replied that they follow a well set pattern and process to run a meticulous background check to ensure the authenticity of the brands joining their platform. Prateek told Startup Story they rigorously check certifications and documents to prove their originality; these certifications have been approved and certified by Ecocert or similar esteemed organizations. They also put the products to test and closely examine the kind of effect they bring. The word of the customer review and the brand’s engagement with their audience regarding a product also goes a long way and acts as a considerable factor when considering a brand for their platform. They also make it a point to verify the ingredients being used by a particular brand.

Choosing Customer Communication Resulting In Great Feedback

Talking about reaching his customers Prateek said that, a product comes into notice when there is proper marketing and a product works, which is when the “product actually catches fire”, Prateek said. During early stages people were intrigued but reluctant to spend on clean products, but India being a highly adaptive market served to their benefit. Prateek and his team entertained the customers answering their queries and engaging them as needed which further helped them retain customers. As of now, people have become quite educated about the types of products in the beauty industry, Prateek concluded.

Business During The Pandemic

Despite the hard and tumultuous times faced by people due to the pandemic and business being affected drastically, a number of e- commerce platforms saw positive growth. As for Vanity Wagon they faced their share of rough time with continuously keeping the team motivated and making sure everyone was safe and healthy as they tread cautiously. Since the lockdown was introduced; being an e-commerce platform they saw a positive growth in terms of business. They have grown 11x today and have seen a linear growth.

Team And Eliminating Competition

Naina, Sahil and Prateek as the three Co-Founders that form the backbone of the company. Each one has a well-defined role to play in building Vanity Wagon from ground up. Now, they have an extended team with an ever increasing customer base. The team also works on educating the customers through blogs etc. Communication with the customers is also taken quite sincerely at Vanity Wagon. Prateek told us that as for the team everyone is well-connected and it is a closely knit company.

As for competitors in the market according to Prateek  they look at any clean beauty marketplace as a direct competition, however, any platform introducing clean products acts an educator for the customers which acts as indirect help, having a novel team persevering every day, and despite having giant e-commerce platforms as their competition, they aren’t worried about leaving a mark of their own.

Future Plans

Vanity Wagon, currently based out of Delhi, is considered as a global brand by the founders. They will be disclosing more about the matter soon. The idea behind it is to introduce Indian products as they are also in demand, with India having an inherent boon of Ayurveda products. Vanity Wagon plans on introducing it beyond India.

As for funding, Vanity Wagon raised their first round in September 2020. They are also looking forward to raising more capital in the running year.

Advice For Entrepreneurs

“For the last two years we have all experienced ups and downs but it becomes quite important to stay positive and follow your passion,” Prateek Ruhail, Founder, Vanity Wagon. He also emphasized on the importance of ‘making a continuous effort’ towards whatever one is trying to accomplish.

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