This is part of an ongoing startup review series supported by our sponsors Sun Startup Essentials.
Startup: Scopial
Have you ever shopped tshirts online? Maybe not because its possibly easier to walk to the nearest mall look and feel the clothes you want to buy rather than take the pain of shopping online with fears in your mind about quality.
But what if the designs were unique? Would you then go online? This is exactly what Scopial is betting on..
One sentence description: Scopial is a online customized tshirts ecommerce site which is powered by an international designer community.
About Startup: Scopial works on the works on the concept of mass customization wherein users from different parts of the world can submit designs and other users can vote these design on a scale of 1 to 5. Based on the voting a design is declared winner every fortnight and the designer is rewarded Rs.20,000.
About Founders: Two brothers Mohit Yadav and Rahul Yadav have started scopial. The company is now a portfolio company of Morpheus Venture Partners.
Funding Status: Not funded yet but mentoring being received from Morpheus Venture Partners.
WAT’s HOT: Well the designs on the site are surely worth looking at. It does seem that the designers that they seem to have roped in are of good quality and that pretty much is the crux of this business. On the delivery handling and customer service front I havent yet experienced their product so I would reserve my comments.
WAT’s NOT: There are a dozen of guys who are doing the same thing much before scopial was born. Myntra which has been well funded has been around for few years now. There is also inkfruit which has been backed by Mahesh Murthy and then younger players like Bluebustees which seem to be making a mark with their whacky tagline tees.
All in all a very crowded space and the effort to build scale would be highly challenged by competitors. What will work is service quality at the end of day
Founders Take: After our post the founder of scopial Mohit Yadav shot us a mail with the following points:
Our Rating – 3 out of 5 stars
If you would like your startup reviewed email us at info(at)watblog(dot)com
—-
This Startup Review Series Is Supported By
About Sun StartUp Essentials Program:
Joining is free and there are no hidden agenda’s. What Startups get on joining the program
- Free Technology Consultation from Sun Engineering team. Help on architectural level issues , porting , benchmarking , scaling issues etc.
- Deeply discounted Sun Systems and Storage products
- Discounted web hosting from our Web Hosting partners
- Open Source Software
Know more here
There are other players like sheepstop,dilsebol and pringoo. pringoo is the best player in this space in India.
Last week I wrote a post on these customized t-shirt printing sites which are a great source for unique styling….i think i must now add Scopial to the list too..
U can read my post here
http://harishlunani.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/so-what-does-your-t-shirt-say-about-you/
Ur comments are most welcome…
Harish Lunani
I had experience of buying on Scopial !
my comments
1. Great designs
2. Good site
3. Poor shopping experience
4. Awesome delivery time (I got Tee within 36 hrs)
5. Descent Cloth (cotton) quality
6. Worst printing, u’ll find finger prints of handlers on color patches.
Thanks for the post Rajiv.
@Rohit – I am sorry if you were not satisfied with the product. I will appreciate if you can send your complaint or a photo of the t-shirt to me at arshia.khan@scopial.com. If we find your comments true, we will be happy to send you another tee.
Nice post and nice comment from Mohit
I bought a Scopial t-shirt for my brother and here were comments from my brother and my Mom:
- Design was good. My Mom considered the design too flashy and that’s understandable
- My bro and my mom were very pleased with the t-shirt quality which includes quality of cotton, etc and the printing as well. And when my Mom says something is good, she really means it.
- On payment side, I didn’t faced any glitch. They have Paypal integration which I guess is a good move.
Thanks
I haven’t shopped from Scopial but I am participating in their fortnight contest.
Do any guys know of any other company in India which gives Rs. 20,000 for a design. I have seen Myntra, Inkfruit, etc and their reward money is way too less. I like Scopial because of the reward money, because there are some amazing designers from whom you can learn something new and they are all so interactive.
I like Myntra because you can get what you want.
Inkfruit is trying to create another Tantra and Karma which and this is worth discussion.
Scopial is creating a niche. How many times have you seen a design like this in market: http://www.scopial.com/myVote.php?designId=295
I don’t think you ever seen something like this.
So cheers for Scopial
Its good to know that other ventures are also adopting the democratic model of product creation through design competitions. The best part is that at the end of this, the beneficiary is the designer, whichever site he participates on – and the consumer, who will see more amazing products than ever before.
At Inkfruit we will continue to try promoting as many artists as possible by publishing their work (currently more than 10 new designs and designers every month) and promoting them through our online reach as well as wide offline presence (currently over 250 locations).
Just one fact correction – Mohit, Inkfruit offers many times more prize money than Scopial across its many design competitions happening parallely.
Cheers!
Rajiv – I am very impressed by your blogging style but here I must say I am a bit disappointed. Here are my comments:
- I think you should get the product before you write a review. The kind of reputation WATBlog has, I am sure the companies won’t have any problem sending you some samples.
- ‘Whats Hot’: I agree with Mohit that you could have included some images, something about the website interface, their way of presentation is awesome and I am sure you agree with me here.
- ‘Whats Not’: I don’t think Myntra, Inkfruit, Bluebustees and Scopial are into direct competition.
-Scopial is creating a niche with their amazing designs. Honestly I am sure you wouldn’t have seen such designs anywhere and such reward money is not given by any other company.
- Inkfruit is doing an amazing job by trying to target the masses, find out designers out of normal people and that’s what I like about them. But honestly speaking it looks you are a bit inclined towards Inkfruit and I am sorry to say that. Your review on Inkfruit received a lot of comments in disagreement.
- Myntra – Agreed that Myntra is probably the biggest player today. They have proved themselves over and over again. They are totally into personal customization. Their royalty program for designers can’t be called ‘mass customization’ exactly.
- Bluebustees create their own design and I’d compare them with Tantra. But I guess there are too many companies working on creating t-shirts with a one liner on them.
So according to me all the 4 cannot be compared and saying that one is ‘not hot’ because of other is clearly a mistake. I have seen people doing this mistake again and again and I hate to see that.
Look at Threadless, Zazzle and Cafe Press. Nobody compares them. They all rule in their respective field.
Thanks Megha for the feedback. The very fact we posted the comments from the founder is because we saw merit in what he said. Yes I agree we should have tried the products and we shall do that going forward but on the competition front I dont think I am wrong. Look at it from the average buyer perspective to an average buyer these are all custom designed tee providers and thats why they are competitors. You and me are evolved users and can differentiate – most people wont. Maybe the challenge is whether quotes on T shirts will work like incase of bluebustees or design on Tee’s like scopial or inkfruit.. If you ask me a scalable business need better quality and even better logistics in this space and only time will tell which player is able to provide wholistic service rather than just great designs online
Good read. Got to know about various companies in this space. I follow few international companies and here are my inputs.
I guess Myntra, sheepstop, dilsebol and pringoo etc (good place when you need few tees for a group / friends having specific print which represents the group or if you are a good designer and can design your own tee) are not comparable to Inkfruit and Scopial (both got a big pool of designers and are looks after a target group of those who wish to wear something stylish and creative).
In my opinion Scopial and Inkfruit are more closer to companies like threadless.com and designbyhumans.com. The whole model of crowd sourcing was started by threadless and other companies are simply following it. Neither Inkfruit nor Scopial got something new when you talk about the business model.
What is more important is your operations and designer base. I do not have any experience dealing with Myntra etc. but I have tried Inkfruit, Scopial, Designbyhumans and threadless (I love tees
).
Threadless: Simply the best. Largest collection and you can get all sort of designs.
Designbyhumans: DBH promotes large and complex designs and got expertise in those prints. Right place for those who like to wear tees with large prints, full of colors and designs which we have seen only on canvas earlier.
Scopial: I recently purchased a tee from scopial and I am happy with quality. They have good collection and most of the designers are from DBH and threadless. The tee was nicely packed and customer service was amazing. Looks like an Indian version of Designbyhumans.
Though I love DBH but i found the print of Scopial better then DBH. I got this tee:
http://www.scopial.com/fullcatalogview.php?designId=148&gen=men
Inkfruit: Got a big collection and pool of Indian designers. Price is reasonable and I am happy with the customer service.
Things to improve: Printing can be improved and should focus more on quality check (my tee had a small defect). Also, I got my tee in an paper envelop (does not give a good impression).
For those who like to read about new designs and collection of different companies. I suggest them to read Singularitee
http://singularitee.blogspot.com/
@ Afraaz – Thanks for sharing your views.
1) “Its good to know that other ventures are also adopting the democratic model of product creation through design competitions”
I guess the word ‘other ventures’ should be replaced by ‘more ventures’. Mass customization is not a new model at all, so Inkfruit also falls in ‘Other ventures’ category.
2) “Just one fact correction – Mohit, Inkfruit offers many times more prize money than Scopial across its many design competitions happening parallely.”
I appreciate that from the core of my heart. IMHO, its about the quality of designs and not the quantity. According to this link : http://www.inkfruit.com/prizedetails.php Inkfruit pays Rs.30,000 worth of prizes per month whereas Scopial rewards Rs.40,000 cash and not to mention the amount in kind.
If you still think Inkfruit rewards more than Scopial there is a serious lack of clarity in your statement.
We have no aim of competing with Inkfruit or Myntra (which has a totally different model). We would like to be known as competitors of threadless and DBH.
Cheers!
Hi – I recently purchased one t-shirt from Inkfruit http://www.inkfruit.com/winning_blowout.php?designid=1824 and had a very bad shopping experience.
Things to improve:
1. Poor printing: Poor printing, t-shirt will be totally different then the one shown on website and on top of it they are defective in some cases (in my case, the logo of Inkfruit was not printed properly and was broken on back and that has spoiled the tee). I better recommend buying from fashion street as they are more reliable.
2. Talking tees / Tees with ‘one liner’: Collection is quite pathetic. Who buy tees with captions like ‘Armani, just another Sindhi Tailor’ http://www.inkfruit.com/winning_blowout.php?designid=2840 or todafone http://www.inkfruit.com/winning_blowout.php?designid=3038
Good things:
1. Good opportunity to designers: Heaven for artists like me who are not pro and learning how to design.
2. Delivery time.
Never knew online t-shirt market is so cluttered but as Afraaz rightly pointed, it’s good for the customers.
I’ve tried inkfruit and Scopial tees and I must admit they were both really good.
I agree with Ashish’s (Pluggd.in) take on this that the market is in nascent stage and can accommodate many players.
But its good to see that both the companies are so passionate to become one of the best designer t-shirt company in India
I recently bought a Scopial tshirt and must say had a nice experience right from buying it (through the website) and a very bare minimum delivery time! The product was exactly as it looked on the website, a very nice quality, very impressive packing as well, affordable price (FREE SHIPPING, yay!) Now even after a couple of washes, there is no visible effect on cloth or design. But the best part was getting it within 2 days after payment !! Awesome delivery time !!
I am not an expert in this field but just happened to know about Scopial few days back. First thing that strikes you on website is their cool interface which has a youthful feel to it.I tried one of their tees and was really satisfied with the quality of cloth and printing.Designs are just amazing and very different from what you normally see. Coupled with a delivery time of under 2 days, I found it a wonderful shopping experience.
My search for best tshirts for my last 6 years ended on scopial.com.Indeed the designs are awesome.They are very new & U will get awesome feel after wearing it.After trying tantra 7 all other general market stuff i would recommend that u please try scopial once & then u will live in salvation
I cant compare Inkfruit to Scopial. What scopial represents is a unique awe inspiring experience. You look at the website, its elegance and the designs and you want to buy some tees immediately. I bought a tee from scopial and within 2 days i got my tee. Its important to mention that I am sitting at my home which is at Agartala,Tripura. I have shopped from other shopping sites as well( books and DVDs mainly), but never got anything in 2 days. Absolutely fantastic.
Inkfruit you have to improve a lot of things and some of your designs are gross.
Way to go Scopial.
I purchsed my first scopial T-shirt few months back, looking at the unusual and yet eye catching designs posted on its website. On recieveing the T shirt, the quality of Tee proved it worth a buy.
Since then, I have gifted scopial T-shits to 4 of my firends, who were not only amazed by the designs but also by the price tag on it.
The community has designs out of the world, offering pure art. Totally worth a buy!
I was going through scopial website and was tempted to buy a tee immediately, such is a collection of great designs in scopial. I never shopped online before and was very hesitant initially. The transaction process was smooth and to my delight I got the tee within 36 hrs of my transaction. The tee is truly world class and I thank scopial for making my first online shopping a memorable experience.
Way to go scopial.
Hi all, quite a discussion happening here and I had to join in. I have bought both from inkfruit and scopial, and I would say none disappointed me, tough there are things that I would like to see improve at both places. Very recently I have also come across another player by the name of SheepStop, not quite sure when they got on to the scene, they still seem to be in beta and have a limited set of designs for sale (as compared to inkfruit). However I do see a lot of potential just from the way the website is laid out and they seem to be getting a lot of quality designs too. I have had the experience of gifting with them and the experience was like none I had ever experienced with any online player. My gift shipped the same day and my brother received it the very next day in Bangalore, the T-shirt quality and print as described by my brother was amazing, and he specially loved the way the T-shirt was packaged along with the gift note. Overall, was very impressed with the shopping experience at SheepStop. Would love to see how the scene evolves with so many players in the fray.
hi friends,
I had bought Tees from mantra and inkfruit and was so pissed off from the experience that was afraid of ever making any purchase on internet.Had to suffer all possible frustrations from delayed delivery to degraded quality stuff, useless aftersales…etc.
Very recently i came across scopial and was completely enamoured by the designs available.It was like… cool, trendy, seemly all at the same time.It appealed me to the degree that i had to give for internet shopping one more chance.The T tourned out to be excellent as it was ditto as website design + gud stuff + quick delivery.For the stuff it seems i can never get this kind of material in these costs.
I now regularly follow scopial for trendy designs fr my T collection…:)
@ Raunak…
The link shared by you is of a mind blowing design.
Think im gonna buy that.
@ Arshia
Hey! Gonna be dropping you a mail soon. Have a couple of ideas in mind.
i had purchased after seeing the design on the website..
but when i got it .. it looks too ordinary to what is shown the site..
print quality is quite bad.. even the fake Chinese t shirts available in the markets have better print quality.. will not buy frm them again
Great article thank for this ..
Hey guys , great read. Ive just started buying thsirts and other products from the net, and love the sites such as scopial and inkfruit. There are lot of names mentined in this blog, but could anyone suggest few more please?
thanl you