FirstCry.com mulls expansion

FirstCry.com, a leading online shopping destination for baby products, is seeking franchisees as a part of their expansion plans. Currently, the brand has 40+ stores in 35 cities with new stores recently opened in Jaipur, Bijapur, Bangalore and Ahmednagar. All these stores are located near shopping hubs within the city.

In order to enhance its access to parents, FirstCry.com has gone beyond the digital space and also built a very strong and profitable franchise-based brick and mortar model. Supam Maheshwari, CEO, FirstCry.com, said: “Our business has one of the toughest sourcing complexities with a huge range and good margin profile and this allows us to facilitate our franchise partners to quickly set up a shop and make profit from day one. We work with our partners on a low cost model that allows them high return on investment and faster payback. The fact that some of our franchise partners have opened multiple stores is a testimony to the success of our model."

FirstCry.com plans to accelerate the growth by scaling the network to more than 300-400 franchise stores across the country in the next five years. For the franchise model, the average area requirement is 1000-3000 sq.ft and investment, including stock, interiors and deposit is Rs 20-60 lakh.

FirstCry.com has over 70000+ items from 400+ top international and Indian brands like Mattel, Ben10, Pigeon, Funskool, Hotwheels, Nuby, Farlin, Medela, Pampers, Disney, Barbie, Gerber, Fisher Price and Mee Mee. Over the time, FirstCry hopes to change’ the way, Indian parents buy so that they can be at home to spend more quality time with their little ones and family.