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Rajasi Dhavalikar / Cottons daily
Putting cotton fabrics on the Indian e-commerce map
Rajasi Dhavalikar with her brand, Cottons Daily, speaks about using e-commerce to make her products available all over India
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By sybil rodrigues
ajasi R Dhavalikar, an MBA in Finance from Symbiosis International University, who went on to do her internship with KPMG after a 5 year journey of SIU, returned back to Goa in 2014 to start her own venture. Starting her journey as an entrepreneur with a real estate firm, Rajasi came up with her idea of Cottons Daily in 2016, after her marriage. Rajasi has her roots in Bandora village, and is the daughter of Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar, a politician and Jyoti Dhavalikar, a retired banker, says that she always dreamt of being a successful business woman since she was a child. Her passion for expanding her business led to her entry into the e-commerce space. “E-commmerce gives a digital platform to one’s business and is an opportunity to globalise your brand and cater to global markets. When you talk about expansion, you have to penetrate in every viable market for a mass reach. Cottons Daily offers an opportunity to all cotton lovers to buy, style their fabrics online and get it delivered at their doorstep thanks to its online platform.” For women who are abroad and have limited shopping options when it comes to Indian clothes, Rajasi’s online platform is a boon for wedding shopping and daily wear, all which is made up of handcrafted cotton. She elaborates on coming up with the idea of Cottons Daily. “In 2016, I started selling my products within my friend circle and through social media. The response being excellent, I slowly expanded my reach. Goans find it difficult to get variety in textiles, the reason being that local retailers keep limited
“E-commmerce gives a digital platform to one’s business and is an opportunity to globalise your brand and cater to global markets”
Rajasi Dhavalikar
Rajasi Dhavalikar
stock. I wanted Goans to have a wide variety of choice and as my business grew, I decided to make it bigger and better. Thanks to the digital trend, my business grew leaps and bounds. People love buying online as they can buy what they want from the ample variety available.” Rajasi’s brand values quality over anything else. Therefore, they choose fabrics and sarees directly from their approved weavers. “We have approximately 50 weavers from different regions of India. The ‘Maheswaris’ are sourced from Madhya Pradesh, the ‘Paithanis’ from Yeola, Maharashtra, the ‘Ikkats’ from Pochampalli, Andhra Pradesh, block prints materials from Jaipur and other places in India.” Rajasi says that Goan women are known for good embroidery which they take up as a hobby. She encourages
28 | Business Goa industry Dossier | february 2021
women to take it up for their livelihood and she has tied up with local artisans to do hand embroidery on some of her products. One can always find local products handcrafted by Goan artisans on the Cottons Daily website under the head ‘Cottons Daily Customised’. Cottons Daily, as the name suggests, mainly caters to pure cotton fabrics including hand block print ‘Sanganeri’ Jaipur Cotton, handwoven ‘Ikkat’, ‘Chikankari’, ‘Kalamkari’ as well as ‘Penkalamkari’, digital printed cotton, ‘kantha’ embroideries, among other fashionable offerings. They also showcase ‘mul’ cotton sarees, ‘sambalpuri’ ‘ikkat’ sarees as well as Bengal cotton sarees. Further, Cottons Daily specialises in wedding sarees which can be customized as per client requirements in handmade pure silk ‘Paithanis’, purely handwoven
‘Banarasi’ ‘Katan’ silk sarees as well as pure silk ‘Kanchi’ ‘Pattu’ sarees. Rajasi says that she gets orders from all over India. In a week, they get around 100 orders and are doing well as far as cotton fabrics and wedding sarees are concerned. In addition, they customize sarees for weddings from Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, at least three to four times a month. Even though Rajasi comes from a political background, she has always kept a distance from it as she wanted to establish herself as an entrepreneur. “My parents have always been supportive of my dreams and have encouraged and empowered me to achieve them. My husband, Aditya Desai, and in laws are supportive of my work and have always respected my independent thoughts. In fact Aditya, always accompanies me when I travel to different places to handpick products from weavers.” Regarding her future plans, Rajasi says that her goal is to provide a variety in Indian fabrics and sarees to the most remote locations through their e-commerce platform. “Our future plans mainly focus on expansion in already established markets as well as entering new remote markets.” Rajasi concludes with a message to aspiring businesswomen. “There are many who have lost their jobs but a digital platform is open to all. The pandemic and the work from home option have given an opportunity to women to set up their business and become financially independent. Goan vocal-for-local groups are supportive and helping out new businesses. I hope and wish the best for all aspiring business women”
