Xstok looks to break-even this fiscal, ramp up presence

Mumbai: Textiles B2B marketplace Xstok, which buys excess stock from manufacturers at a discount and sells to end-users through auctions, hopes to break-even this fiscal on the back of rising sales.

Founded by Sanjiv Khandelwal and Mihir Shah nine months ago, Xstok will ramping up its reach to over 120 towns this year from over 30 cities now, Khandelwal said.

He said Xstok charges around 5 percent of the sale price from the buyer as commission and so far has done over 350 auctions, but refused to share the total value.

Going by the good traction, he said he is confident of breaking even this fiscal itself.

To bring in more customers, the city-based company will be launching a new service called SampleExpress, which he feels will increase the buyer base and volume by least 30-40 per cent.
Under SampleExpress, Xstok will be sending samples to prospective buyers.

In the textile industry, surplus stock means the extra units created due to order cancellations, or the buffer amount produced for large size orders.

These units, depending on the quality, are sold by the mills at a discounted price to buyers.

Currently, the company is into apparel/ready-mades, yarns, home textiles and fabrics but plans to enter paper and chemicals as well.

He said domestic textile surplus market is huge, with an annual turnover of USD 11 billion, which is about 10 percent of the total production of the textile industry.Xstok lists products/surplus units (ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh), with detailed descriptions about the quality of the product, and the sells them through auctions and wholesale direct sales.

Xstok has around 6,500 registered customers and over 250 suppliers, including Arvind Mills, Trident, Mafatlal, Grasim, Welspun, Bombay Dyeing and Gokuldas Textiles.

He said angel investors like Jeetu Panjabi (ex-Capital Group), Manish Chokshi (Asian Paints), Oliphans Capital, Anupam Mittal (People Group) and Vineet Suchanti (Keynote Capital) have invested over Rs 3 crore to launch Xstok. The startup employs 45 people and will be hiring over 30 more over the next three months.

When asked about fund raising plans, he said the company is generating enough cash and does not need fresh funds at least for the next one year.