If we look back ten years ago, doing online shopping was non-existent, especially if you are trying to buy something like toys, clothes, fashion accessories, essential things like cribs, baby care products, etc. for your children. We have to purchase everything from the market and still not be satisfied because they didn’t have many options and what was available was not up to the customer’s expectations. That’s what happened with the Co-founder of the FirstCry, Supam Maheshwari. Whenever he wanted to buy something for his kid, he was only able to do it while he was visiting foreign countries for business purposes. While dealing with all this, he got an idea of why not give Indian parents an online outlet where they will get thousands of options to purchase baby products from all over the world. A small crisis faced by a businessman started FirstCry.
FirstCry Launch Story
At first, FirstCry owner was proceeding with a supply base prototype, and that means they were trying their best to ship baby products all over India from their storehouses, which were based in major cities like Pune, Delhi, Banglore, and also Kolkata. But to extend their business and to keep up with the modern era demand. They began to add shopkeepers to their platform, which gave the local shopkeeper a chance to sell their baby merchandise on the FirstCry Website.
FirstCry also launched their personal brand, which is well known by the name of BabyHug. To launch the BabyHug, their criteria was to make beautiful, stylish, and cute clothes with comfortable fabric for the babies and toddlers. After this, they also launched their own brand for baby footwear, which was named CuteWalk.
The designs they are selling are not usually available in the market, and the people who want their little ones to look stylish FirstCry became their first stop to purchase fashionable clothing for their kids. Still in the present, FirstCry is not only one of the most massive children product selling websites. But you can find that they have franchised more than 350 shops in India in various cities.
Challenges faced by the FirstCry Owner in the Beginning
- The idea of selling children products on an online platform was great and unique ten years ago, and it could’ve done so much better. But the major hurdle in their way was people didn’t trust online sites much, and if they failed to do the right marketing, then it will always be unrecognized and unorganized.
- The second problem was to make the parents happy. I mean, what did FirstCry sell that a parent won’t be able to find in their local stores. So to keep up with the demand of new generation parents, their team always had to think on their toes and launch new creative and stimulating methods to bring happiness for their customers.
FirstCry Funding and Investors
In only a decade, FirstCry raised around 429 million dollars in eight rounds. In 2020 February, they raised their funding of 150 million dollars from the Series E round, and their investor was SoftBank Vision fund. It is two years in a row that they raised 150 million dollars, making it a total of 300 million dollars funding in just two years.
Value of FirstCry
According to the reports of Entrackr, the value of FirstCry is around 1.2 Billion dollars. It means that not only the future of the company is bright, but it also entered India’s unicorn association. But these final reports were prepared by FirstCry, which is based on the prediction they have put together. But the unicorn association didn’t give any recent value report about verifying this claim of FirstCry, still, according to the January 2019 reports, the value of FirstCry is around 850 million dollars.
Growth of the FirstCry
A company that started from Pune, which used to sell mother and baby care products, is now alleged to be entire Asia’s one of the biggest online shops, which is currently selling varieties of various children’s products. On their site, you will be able to discover more than 2,00,000 remarkable merchandise, and they are connected to more than 6000 brands. Since FirstCry started, the growth of this online store has been phenomenal. It is growing each and every passing day. Now their stores are not only in major cities, but you will also be able to discover their stores in a little city like Bhiwadi, where they recently opened up their store.
FirstCry also offers parental guidance and has a massive constituency of parents. Every month around thirteen million parents are engaging over this platform. You will be able to find that they have 10+ million downloads on the google play store and also the app store. A big celebrity like Amitabh Bachchan is endorsing their brand for a long time, and the parents trust this brand about taking care of the necessities of their little ones.
