YOUNG SCIONS SHASHWAT AND SHIVIKA GOENKA ARE MAKING ALL THE RIGHT NOISES WITH A FRESH APPROACH

YOUNG SCIONS SHASHWAT AND SHIVIKA GOENKA ARE MAKING ALL THE RIGHT NOISES WITH A FRESH APPROACH

Question: How did you cope with the pandemic as a couple both professionally and personally?

Shashwat : From a professional perspective, it was a whirlwind phase because our businesses (CESC and Spencers) have been completely operational right from the day one of the lockdown. It was very hectic but also very rewarding at the same time. I was extremely busy — we had to do tie-ups and there was so much work to do and so much to ideate and innovate to keep things moving. We tried out new things, replanned and rebuild simultaneously so that our patrons didn’t face any trouble. Personally too, it was a busy phase since I ended up working on all the seven days of the week from home. It has been busier than normal times for us.

Question: And despite that, you two have come up with The Gift Studio.

Shashwat : Yeah, it’s an online bespoke gifting concept. This is something which we have been figuring out the right time to launch and the pandemic fasttracked the whole launch process. The overall gifting market in India is matchless in terms of potential and goes up to a couple of billion dollars and includes personal gifting, corporate gifting, gifting during the wedding season and other occasions.

The idea was how do we tap into that market and we had a little bit of idea with Nature’s Basket, where we have a very small gifting vertical offering curated gourmet food article hampers for customers. Hence we wanted to take that forward and enter the gifting market as a standalone business. And the pandemic just fast-tracked the entire process. We wanted to give the consumers a thoughtful online experience, where they can choose curated gift hampers seamlessly.