Yepme shuts four offline stores, moves warehouse to cut costs

Delhi-based fashion e-commerce firm Yepme is on a cost-cutting drive, VCCircle has learnt after speaking to several people in the company.

VAS Data Services Pvt. Ltd, which runs Yepme, has shuttered four offline stores in Gurgaon and Noida (two in each city), employees of the e-commerce firm said.

“Those stores were not making money. We are opening a new store in EDM Mall in Ghaziabad...It is cost-cutting in relevant places. If you are remodelling your business to a more omnichannel (mode), you have to get the cost structure right,” Vivek Gaur, co-founder and chief executive of Yepme, told VCCircle in a telephonic interaction.

The company has also opted for a smaller warehouse, Gaur said.

“We just finished shifting our warehouse. From a 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse, we have shifted to a 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse. We didn’t really require 100,000 sq. ft. Some people have been absorbed and some have not been,” he added.

Yepme employees said the warehouse has been shifted from Bilaspur in Gurgaon to Kabulpur in Faridabad “to manage costs”.

Earlier this month, a group of Yepme employees lodged a complaint with the Labour Commission accusing the company of delayed payments and salaries. The employees blamed the company of putting “mental pressure” on them to resign and alleged that they were being asked to return company assets.

Yepme was founded in 2010 by Sandeep Sharma (chief operating officer and chief technology officer), Gaur and Anand Jadhav. Sharma is an IIM-Bangalore alumnus who had previously worked at Accenture, Sapient, and HCL. An IIM-Lucknow alumnus, Gaur had earlier worked at HT Media, Living Media India, and Hindustan Unilever. Jadhav, also an IIM-Lucknow alumnus, had previously worked at Omved Lifestyle, Reliance Retail, and Infiniti Retail.

VCCircle was the first to report on employee-related issues at the Delhi-based startup. In March, too, a group of Yepme employees had approached the Labour Commission complaining of unpaid salaries.

VCCircle reported in May that VAS Data had raised Rs 4.5 crore (around $700,000 then) in a bridge round. The same month, Yepme raised Rs 6.26 crore (just under $1 million) from listed garment exporter Gokaldas Exports Ltd (GEX). The firm had said it will use the funds for the operations of its UK entity, Yepme UK Plc, which deals in fashion products exclusively for international markets.