Opening Doorz

By Lisha Gomes | Opening Doorz Editorial | March 06, 2021

Shrea Kukreja is vivacious, artistic and always on the lookout for challenges. If abstract art does not satisfy her soul, she immerses herself into writing. This 22-year-old Advertising student, like everyone else was bogged down during the lockdown. With her first book, Soul Spoken, already released, she was wondering what next when, along with her mother Anjali and Aunt Monica she came up with the idea of helping women entrepreneurs.

Why and where were the next question the trio had to answer and the name Viciniti stuck since they wanted business-women to congregate within their area to showcase the work that they do and to rope in a healthy clientele for the business-minded homemakers?

Shrea’s business venture is a shopping-business module which provides a platform for all things homemade! She has set up shop at Bandra, off Linking Road. This is to cater to women entrepreneurs from Khar, Bandra, Santacruz, Andheri, Lokhandwala and all other major western suburbs of Mumbai. In the future, she has plans to expand to enable more entrepreneurs to be a part of this exciting, innovative business module.

Celebrate Women’s Day at Viciniti from today

Beginning today, and going on till March 08, which is International Women’s Day, Viciniti is launching their store to Celebrate Women’s day. So far, they have received a good response for bookings from women wishing to display/showcase their homemade products like crochet, stationary, art , jewellery, cakes, organic gift hamper’s, essential oils etc.

Speaking about her venture, Shrea explains, “We offer affordable solutions for Home Business Owners (women entrepreneurs) to showcase their products, host pop-up events and assign their deliveries from our Store. A Digital App is also underway to manage customer interactions and orders.”

Going by the response from women in the area and from around the suburbs, and the energy that each entrepreneur is bringing in, Shrea is confident of getting a footfall of 100 to 150 women to attend this event with a target age group of 25- plus.

Brand handling at Viciniti

At Viciniti, each brand is given a specific space to showcase their products and skills. Since these businesses begin online, customers aren’t able to touch and feel the products causing many businesses to discontinue. Here, they will have a designated area for each brand so that customers can physically see the product and then purchase it.  The difficulties faced by start-ups from home are mainly:

1. No place to showcase their product: Customers want to check the product and this is not possible with online businesses. Here, the idea of shelving different brands came up.
2. Affordable space: Most of these brands are start-ups and need an affordable space to showcase their products. Viciniti provides this space with a nominal subscription.
3. Manual deliveries: Viciniti enables customers to come to the store and pick up products that they have ordered allowing the brands to focus completely on their creations and not worry about deliveries.

The theme for the event, which begins today, is ‘Supporting women entrepreneurship and home-grown talent. However, Shrea does not want to restrict this only to women entrepreneurs. She has plans to help the men too! As of today, the store is going to have shelves that showcase the work of 22 brands which are purely home-grown. People from ages 14 to 55 are participating in this event with several unique and economic products.

Walk in from today, at Viciniti

It is an Indoor-Outdoor walk-in event for anyone beginning with food stalls outside the store and walking in to different home décor, accessories, beauty essentials and sustainable material products that are artsy, personalized and customizable.

Viciniti’s app in the making will enable customers to view order and customize the products they want. Through this app, brands will be able to see the different orders and customers will be able to track the making and delivery of their product. It is similar to amazon and will also enable brands to showcase their product line on the app along with the different social media sites.

Shrea’s book Soul Spoken is about a place where experiences have been characterized by living emotions. It is a perceptive interpretation of a young girl’s journey where aspects such as conflict, love, ego, selflessness, restlessness, inspiration, aspiration, contentment have been personified. A magical interplay between the mind, heart and soul, designed for young adults. With Viciniti, Shrea is interpreting the way a woman looks at business involving women… and men.

The store is located at 476, Ground Floor, Kiran Kunj, Off Linking Road, Bandra (west), Mumbai—400 050.  Landmark: In the same building as Coffee By DiBella.

(Lisha Gomes is a third year BMM (Bachelor of Mass Media) student at St. Andrews College, Bandra, Mumbai. She is passionate about reading, enjoys singing and has also participated in a few dance shows. She plays soccer for her college. She was a star performer for her school, Mary Immaculate Girls High School, Borivali).

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