Warehouse by Mudita is not your typical retail outlet—it operates on a unique business model that focuses on liquidating last season’s luxury designer collections, offering authentic pieces at up to 70% off. In a market where imitation thrives, Warehouse by Mudita has created a space where customers can access genuine high-end fashion from iconic designers like Tarun Tahiliani, JJ Valaya, and Gaurav Gupta, among others. The brand has built its reputation on forming strong relationships with designers, curating collections that maintain the essence of luxury while providing affordability.
Mudita Jaipuria, Founder of Warehouse by Mudita, has been deeply immersed in the world of luxury fashion from a young age, thanks to her father, a connoisseur of super luxury in the 90s. Growing up surrounded by opulence, Mudita’s early exposure to high-end fashion and luxury items shaped her understanding of the industry. After gaining experience working with top designers like Rohit Gandhi, Rahul Khanna, and Namrata Joshipura, and learning the ropes of supply chain and logistics at global conglomerate Li & Fung, Mudita launched Warehouse by Mudita in 2014. Inspired during her travels, she identified a gap in the Indian market for liquidating excess luxury inventory, a concept prevalent overseas. Since then, her brand has evolved into a unique multi-designer outlet offering luxury merchandise at discounted prices, helping designers clear excess stock while maintaining exclusivity.
In an exclusive interview with IMAGES Business of Fashion’s Kajal Ahuja, Mudita shares the challenges she faced while establishing this model, the importance of maintaining authenticity, and her unwavering commitment to delivering a true luxury experience through pop-ups and events like The Luxury Show.
Excerpts from the chat…
Warehouse by Mudita operates on a unique business model. Can you explain how it works and the challenges you faced while establishing this model in India?
Our business model focuses on liquidating last season’s inventory at 70% off. We saw a lot of our target audiences going towards the imitation market. As a brand, we have eradicated the imitation market as a whole. By offering genuine designer pieces like Tarun Tahiliani, JJ Valaya, Rohit Gandhi, Rahul Khanna, or Gaurav Gupta at significant discounts, we eliminate the need for customers to seek copies.
When it comes to challenges, every year presents a new set of them. A key challenge has been establishing authenticity and building a reliable network. Relationship-building with brands is crucial, as it ensures successful collaborations. We also face challenges in gatekeeping—being selective about the brands we allow on the platform. We reject the brands with poor delivery timelines, finishing issues, or damaged inventory, ensuring we only work with brands we trust.
What criteria do you use to select the designers and collections featured in your outlets?
The key criteria for selecting designers are: they must have been active in the Indian market for 7-8 years and be recognised by FDCI or Lakme. Branding is a major factor—we look for brands that resonate with our target consumers. We also evaluate product quality, delivery timelines, and customer service. If a designer has poor after-sales service, we do not proceed. We perform due diligence on every designer and their processes. If any issues arise, I personally liaise with the designer to resolve them.
Do you hold the inventory yourself?
We primarily operate through dropshipping, though we hold inventory for the website in some cases. For events, inventory goes directly from the designer to the customer, but we conduct thorough checks before onboarding. When a new designer approaches us, we request their lookbook and 10-15 sample pieces, and our merchandiser visits their factory to ensure quality, as my name is associated with the event.
How do you ensure that the luxury experience is maintained with these kinds of discounts?
To maintain the luxury experience, even with discounted prices, we ensure that everything from decor to customer service reflects a premium standard. At The Luxury Show, there is no discounting, and each brand has a dedicated relationship manager to ensure their needs are met. The setup, ambiance, and overall experience cater to luxury buyers. Every single vendor or brand has been looked after to ensure that they’re having an overall luxurious experience. The setup is beautiful and aesthetic, it is meant for the luxury buyer, or the UHNI(Ultra-High Net Worth Individual) buyer.
For our warehouse events, despite offering up to 70% off, we maintain high-quality communication, mindful that we are representing global brands. The setup, customer handling, and service are all executed with the same attention to detail, ensuring the luxury experience remains intact even at discounted prices.
Who is your primary customer base? And what steps do you take to bring the customer to you?
Our primary customer base includes UHNIs, HNIs, upper middle class, and middle-class aspirants. To attract customers, we rely on the reputation of the Warehouse brand, known for offering 100% authentic merchandise and high-quality events. Our communications are key—we ensure our invitations and campaigns are attractive and compelling.
We hold events in Delhi twice a year, along with pop-ups throughout the year. We also operate in Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Kolkata, where we’ve built a customer base from scratch through effective campaigns and footfall generation efforts for brands.
And you pivoted to an online model in 2020?
Yes.
What were the driving factors behind this decision, and how has the online platform been performing so far?
The pivot in 2020 was more of a survival instinct. Because when Covid happened, nobody knew what’s at the end of the tunnel, or whether there’s an end of the tunnel. Our business got affected because of fashion and events in fashion.
Our decision to pivot online was survival and survival, and then it was also driven by the need for performance. We had to do it just because it was online. And online is a more forgiving platform. You can easily conjure up numbers for online, visibly footfall, whereas offline you cannot. Nevertheless, we were very transparent. Initially the website did exponentially well, the CPL (cost per lead) rates were very low. Website was the only thing that people were turning towards.
So it worked out great for us in the first two years when we pivoted online. At that point, a lot of people pivoted online, but they were not able to sustain themselves. We have sustained our website out of COVID and it’s still one of our stronger verticals.
Social gatherings or big events were not happening during COVID. How do you think you were able to pivot online during such a time, having a fairly large occasionwear portfolio?
We saw our highest numbers in Covid because it was a matter of retail therapy. I think people were hoarding. In fact, that is when the idea of ‘Get Powered By Warehouse’ came about. Because a lot of designers who did digital shows at that point reached out to us for reposting their live events on our stories. Then our customers started responding with screenshots of those items. And that’s how we launched – Get powered by Warehouse.
And how similar would you say your business model to brands like Pernia?
Warehouse has evolved into an ecosystem now. Unlike Pernia, which has a website and offline store presence, we have events, pop-ups, a website, and now we have the Luxury Show. So we are taking each brand from top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, we guide them through their entire customer journey. When a brand collaborates with us, it is not a one time collaboration, but often spans generations. For example, we have brands where the relationship started with a senior leader and continues with the next generation. Fashion, lifestyle, and jewellery are generational businesses, and we nurture long-term relationships within this ecosystem.
Do you plan to launch physical stores?
Not at the moment. Because I think the pop-up concept is working out for us. I don’t have to be committed to a store 24×7, nor do I have to carry real estate expenses. Our events have become larger than life. So to get a permanent retail space that is as large as this, we would only have to buy a mall. So I don’t think that’s practical for us at this point. But never say never.
How do you maintain price points to affordability, since you work with high end brands and designers?
As a matter of policy, Warehouse has never gotten involved in any designer’s price points because we feel it’s their prerogative. All the designers work really hard, they have teams for sourcing or sampling. Just because a piece of their inventory is stuck, an external person should not tell them to lower the price to liquidate their inventory.
Another reason for this is, we don’t want the designers to start cutting down on pricing and start sending us poor quality products. They do have damaged or worn down pieces. And just because they may agree to a price that is Rs 500 or 1,000 cheaper, I don’t want it in my event.
How do you ensure that the online shopping experience mirrors the exclusivity of in-person events?
To ensure the online shopping experience mirrors the exclusivity of in-person events, we focused on having an active and responsive CRM (customer relationship management) team. Before launching our website, we noticed many platforms had delayed responses to customer inquiries. We wanted to avoid that, so we ensured our CRM team responds within five minutes to any queries, whether from designers or clients. Initially, it was just my husband and me managing operations during COVID, but now we have a dedicated team to maintain timely interactions. Fast response is crucial in the competitive online space, where customers move on quickly if they don’t get instant replies.
Lastly, tell us about The Luxury Show. What motivated you to create this exclusive event and how does it align with your overall brand strategy?
The Luxury Show is a passion project. We have been seeing a huge gap in the market wherein luxury shows have not been happening. Either the venue is not luxurious or the brand mix is not luxurious or the overall experience is not luxurious. This is not a crowd-centric event but more of an experiential event.
People come to The Luxury Show to experience products. The starting price point on this show is about Rs 10 lakh and it goes up to a multiple of crores. I’m not expecting conversions to happen here, although they have. But having said that, I’m looking for people to come and experience luxury and enjoy and imbibe and create that brand synergy.
The vision behind The Luxury Show was to get art, interiors, fashion and jewellery under one roof for a UHNI target audience. So if a person who’s coming here comes from a certain bracket, they are interested in all the four verticals. And we have made it possible for them under one roof – it is like a one stop shop.
We want our customers to be with us from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. We aim to build a cyclical economy for designers, starting with full-price collections and gradually liquidating items that don’t convert at full price. Designers come to us for customer generation and footfall, and we manage their collections through various stages—new, discounted, and liquidated—based on performance and seasonal trends. Contracts are in place to ensure smooth execution across the board.
