The smartwatch market in India is presently in a boom phase as more and more people are eager to try out a smartwatch since they are more affordable than before, and a plethora of smart features provided by the various brands is remarkable. Domestic brands today are playing a pivotal role in making these smart wearables accessible by introducing relevant functionality along with fitness tracking and health monitoring functions, within a sweet price point. The Indian wearables market, which includes products such as smartwatches and earbuds, has resulted in the highest quarterly shipment to date, growing by 165.1% percent, which translates to a massive 11.8+m units in Q3, as reported by IDC. In this fast-expanding market segment, Mustard is the newest entrant to make its debut with lifestyle smart wearables.
, Amit Verma, and Ashish (K) Lohani were responsible for starting Mustard a Delhi-based Electronics Lifestyle Gadgets Brand, founded with the goal to create high-quality products with pioneering features at affordable prices for the consumer. In an exclusive interview with DeviceNext, they talked about the brand’s inception journey and its product strategy roadmap for India.
Here’s an excerpt from the interaction.
How well are the products from Mustard gaining traction in India?
We are receiving an excellent response from the market — all thanks to our marketing team, who have worked out a perfect mix for a digital and online platform visibility tool. We are gaining excellent organic traffic, which is leading to an above-average DRR. Our website sales have also seen tremendous growth over the last four months.
From where does Mustard plan on receiving maximum leads — online, or offline?
As a well-planned policy, we have decided to take the online route first, and hence, we have launched our products on India’s top eCommerce platforms, Amazon and Flipkart. Taking things further, we are also in talks with several other online channel partners for a broader online presence. Though offline channel partners have also been approaching Mustard for collaborations, we have decided to keep the offline route on hold for a while.
How are Mustard products different from others available in the market? How does Mustard plan to deal with its competitors?
Our primary focus is to establish ourselves as a reputed, structured, and sustainable brand. This can only be possible once we have no compromised products. At Mustard, we ensure that all our products go through seven layers of strict quality checks, from manufacturing to packaging. We incorporate the best quality sensors in all our smartwatches since our focus is to provide the highest accuracy across all measurements, be it health parameters such as SPO2, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, or Sport Modes/Fitness tracking. We have seen multiple competitor brands using inexpensive substandard Chinese-origin sensors to either keep the price low or gain quick profits. Sighting this as the biggest differentiating factor, we introduced some of the best-in-class VC32 sensors in all our smartwatches.
We have launched all our smartwatches with 1.7” displays and above, so our customers witness the best viewing experience on their wrists. Every Mustard smartwatch delivers a display brightness of over 550 NITS. The battery capacity ranges between 250mAh and 290mAh, depending on the range. Furthermore, all our smartwatches feature a premium zinc alloy metal body with minimal use of ABS and plastic. As for the main chipset/CPU, every Mustard wearable carries a Realtek chip that gives our smartwatches high-end features and superior performance along with the best user experience.
How do you manage to increase the recall value of your brand?
We are executing aggressive marketing strategies using digital mediums and covering all platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. As stated earlier, we are receiving an overwhelming organic customer flow which is extremely encouraging for us. Additional marketing by using AMS platforms on Amazon is also being utilized.
What are your plans to further expand your business?
Mustard will be venturing into many more product categories, such as party speakers, TWS earbuds, and the alike, along with watches in certain categories including Android watches, kids’ smartwatches, etc. We also have plans to expand into the offline market; however, this move will completely depend on the market conditions and our readiness around July 2023.
What strategy are you following on “after-sales” services?
We only use the replacement model when it comes to after-sales service for our smartwatch segment. We have tied up with well-known market player One-Assist, which is a leading service delivery company in India. Mustard has a huge service coverage for over 29,000 PIN codes across India, In short, we have covered the entire country through our service delivery network. We also provide a hassle-free customer service experience with a pickup & drop facility from the doorstep, indirectly leading to a happy customer journey.
