The Indian consumer market is largely focused on youth and millennials, while failing to acknowledge or understand India's fast growing 60+ population. This segment is huge but quite under served as compared to countries like US & Japan, where the baby boomer population is a strong focus for marketers and brands. While it is true that India is a young country, what people tend to overlook is that India is also a rapidly ageing country. Brands are setting up dedicated wings with customized features to serve seniors, as they realize the lucrative business opportunities exist within this consumer group. Identifying that the organized retail market for seniors is negligible, Ayush Agrawal and Tapan Mishra decided to address this gap early on. This marked the beginning of Seniority to make it India's largest shopping destination for senior citizens.

For the first three months, the duo kept experimenting with various versions of their business proposition to give it proper shape and direction. They put in lot of efforts onboarding vendors, keeping a motivated team together trying to meet industry leaders and getting their views, and most importantly making their first few sales. "We engrossed ourselves in doing a diligent research of the market so that we could implement those in

our business before actually venturing out in the market. Once we reached a threshold where we could launch it we faced initial hiccups but worked our way around it. Things have fared much better ever since the start and we are quite positive about our growth now,"explicates Ayush.

The company is backed by RPG Ventures, the venture capital arm of RP Goenka group of companies, and is built around the novel concept of elder care and services. It aims to become the first port of call for all medical and lifestyle needs of senior citizens and their caregivers. With more than 10,000 products selling on its portal customers can purchase relevant medical, wellness and convenience products from the same place without having to scout for different sellers. Additionally, the company engages in several community engagement initiatives where the customers can participate, shed their inhibitions and live life to the fullest. "Our yoga sessions, dance workshops, karaoke evenings, are quite popular among our customers as it makes them feel inclusive and loved," mentions Tapan.

Seniority aims to become the first port of call for all medical and lifestyle needs of senior citizens and their care givers

Above all the company invests efforts in ensuring that only products that meet certain predefined quality standards are added to its portfolio. It has also successfully forged exclusive partnerships with global brands like Drive DevilBiss Peta(UK)Ltd. Etac Tenura to bring top class engineered products to consumers in India.

The Growth
Seniority started operations in February 2017 through its first offline retail store in Pune and the website(seniority.in). From serving 10,000 customers in June 2017 to now having more than four lakh happy customers, the company has come a long way. In terms of revenue, it has crossed the first one crore (in GMV) in the first six months of operations itself and is growing at more than double the rate every year, registering a month-on-month growth of 10-15 percent. "In the next five years, we foresee a 10X growth rate, with 120 percent succession year-on-year. We are betting big on our online presence and will soon be launching an app for a seamless shopping experience for our customers. Besides these, we will continue to look at expanding our product portfolio and offline presence across various cities,"they conclude.