Success Spotlight: How an independent fashion brand adapted and skyrocketed sales on TikTok

Success Spotlight: How an independent fashion brand adapted and skyrocketed sales on TikTok

December 6, 2021

TikTok For Business

Small BusinessSuccess Stories

We sat down with Niki Shamdasani, co-owner ofSani,to hear about how she and her sister Ritika used TikTok to expand their product line and build trust with their customers.   

Ritika and I started Sani really to solve a personal need. We were shopping for an Indian wedding and couldn’t find really good quality and trend-forward clothes in the U.S.

When we asked others what they were doing for South Asian weddings in the U.S., we realized that most people we asked wait to go to India to get their cultural formal wear, so we decided to start Sani as a side project for ourselves and our friends. 

It really just grew from there. In February 2020, we launched on Rent the Runway as the first South Asian fashion brand on their platform—that was the moment when we thought that Sani was going to go from this part-time business into something full-time. 

Two-and-a-half weeks later, the pandemic hit, and at that point we were focused on only formal wear. It was not the best time to be a formal wear business, so a lot has changed over the past year, but that's jumping ahead. That's why we started.

It was a mindset of: “How can we deliver value to people in some way that's not salesy at all?”

We knew that people were not buying formal wear during the pandemic, and that mindset around value-added content is one you should have anyway, but maybe we had lost sight of that a little bit. Then we were confronted with: “We're not making any sales right now, so what are the things that we can put out there?” 

The first video that went viral showed the process from sketching out a design to being shown on a model. Then we started making a bunch of videos like that and showing behind the scenes. This is what we have, this is who we are.

Just stick with it and keep experimenting.

We were lucky to have that video do well in the beginning, but every single time our series stops working, we're trying to figure out what the next thing is that is working.

We just had to try to be consistent, and I think that's part of the craft. Just consistency in creation, and eventually, you have something that does better. What do you need to see change?

Create what you want to see.

And also, don't feel like it has to have some very high production value. None of our TikToks have a high production value, which I think is the magic of it. 

I don't think social media is ever 100% authentic, but there is this increased element of authenticity in TikTok that you really don't find in a lot of other places. 

Don't spend time trying to have the perfect take. Do it, put it out there, see how people react, refine and keep going.

What surprised me is how much of an opportunity there still is to serve our audience. The fashion market is crazy saturated—even the South Asian formal wear market has become a lot more saturated, but people will be really open about things like: “I cannot find good plus-size South Asian clothing.”

There are these niches within this niche that still aren't being served well, and I don't think that we would have realized it if not for the fact that people are just so wonderfully vocal on the platform. 

That’s such an example of how we want to see ourselves out there, represented by brands — all different sizes, all different skin tones, all different regions in India and in South Asia in general, and that’s just not being shown.

I easily get into the mindset of: “There's so many brands out there, how do we stand out?” No, there's still actually a lot of opportunity to give people what they want in a better way.

My sister and I spend time just viewing casually throughout the week. We'll save certain videos that we think could help inspire something of our own. We actually try not to look at too many fashion brands, or brands in general, because sometimes that's made us think too narrowly about what we should do. Then we'll come together with our saved videos and brainstorm and usually right after that start filming.

If there is something like a really hot trend that we need to film, we'll just do it that same day, but honestly, acting on trends in a very sort of basic way hasn't worked for us.

Start now. Start yesterday.

Like I was saying earlier, for us it's been about how can we deliver value, and I think if we had gone into it with how we can make this a very successful holiday campaign, the content would have been entirely different. The trust people would have had in Sani would have been entirely different.

On TikTok you need to tell stories instead of focusing on making ads.

If this holiday season doesn't end up being successful, you have a whole year to get people to trust you and be excited about you and test out content. Get started early with building trust and not being salesy, and the sales will come after that.