Ajay Rao: Marketplaces today demand complete digitisation for every shipment
Emiza has a deep subject matter expertise in warehousing and order fulfilment for over 180+ Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) brands, across a broad spectrum, right from beauty, personal care and cosmetics, fashion and lifestyle, to electronics and appliances, home and kitchen and food and nutrition. Ajay Rao, Founder & CEO of Emiza, in this interview with Divya Shetty, discusses the company’s operations and shares insights on how brands can reimagine and strengthen their logistics strategies.
Can you give us an idea of how Emiza works?
Emiza operates as an end-to-end fulfilment ecosystem designed to simplify, strengthen, and significantly improve the efficiency of brands’ supply chains. The foundation of our model is a plug-and-play, multi-location warehousing network that allows brands to expand quickly while avoiding operational complexity. Each facility is designed to support category-specific requirements. Fashion brands benefit from refurbishment and quality checks, while FMCG brands rely on our bundling, combo creation, and other value-added processes.
Technology is a core differentiator for us. All our systems are built in-house, which ensures tighter control and faster problem-solving. Our Video Management System offers real-time visibility across sites, the Order Management System ensures smooth order flow, and a Central Control Tower monitors operations from start to finish to maintain consistency and accuracy.
Returns are another critical part of the supply chain, and this is an area where brands see a lot of value in working with us. We process RTOs within 48 hours, which helps reduce inventory blockage and increases the proportion of stock that can go back into circulation. This is further supported by a transparent and responsive claim-management process.
To support fast and dependable customer fulfilment, we also provides Same-Day and Next-Day Delivery options, allowing brands to meet the growing demand for fast delivery without having to invest in additional infrastructure of their own.
Together, these capabilities create a single, cohesive fulfilment partner that enables brands to operate with greater speed, precision, and reliability across their entire supply chain.
Emiza has recently partnered with Raymond. How is this collaboration different from other partnerships with fashion brands?
Many of the fashion brands we work with are D2C brands that already understand the online ecosystem. Raymond, however, is a traditional brand transitioning from offline to online. Given their strong brand equity and the scale they expect online, they needed a partner equipped to handle both scale and complexity.
We have activated warehouses for Raymond across four key cities in India and manage the entire workflow, including warehousing and packaging materials. Their packaging needs vary across platforms such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Myntra, and our teams handle these requirements end-to-end.
Raymond also relies on us for a comprehensive technology stack that covers order receipt, routing, and fulfilment, along with seamless integration with their enterprise SAP platform. As a listed company, they require precise financial accounting and reporting, so we have built the reporting frameworks and automation tools necessary to support those standards.
Additionally, Raymond wants to leverage its strong retail footprint by using store inventory for online orders. We’ve developed logic for order routing, store-level fulfilment, and claims management, offering them a complete end-to-end solution. Unlike many other brands that take selective services, Raymond has opted for the full-stack solution.
What lessons have you learned from the Raymond partnership that can be applied to other fashion and textile brands?
We’ve brought our tried and tested model to Raymond, so there was confidence from their side. The main learning has been in execution—particularly inventory planning and optimisation.
As Raymond scales up, they’re realising some imbalances, like higher demand in certain regions but inventory concentration elsewhere. Our data platform and control tower help provide real-time insights into inventory placement, enabling better optimisation.
Since the partnership began recently and coincided with the seasonal spike, we’re still in the early stages. But going forward, better inventory planning will be a key focus. With a stable and reliable platform now in place, Raymond’s next step is to scale their business two to three times with the support of an optimised supply chain.
Fashion brands are investing heavily in agile back-end operations. From your experience, what are the top three priorities for textile brands when modernising their fulfilment infrastructure?
When fashion brands start modernising their fulfilment backbone, a few priorities consistently rise to the top based on what we see across the industry. The first priority is strengthening returns and claim management. Marketplaces now expect complete digitisation, including video documentation for every shipment. What once depended on manual email trails and CCTV extracts has shifted to real-time digital access, which makes claim resolution faster and far more transparent.
The second priority is preparing for quick commerce. Fashion, with its variety of SKUs and size ranges, does not naturally fit the quick commerce model. To participate meaningfully, brands need to rethink their warehouse networks, redesign layouts, and position inventory intelligently without inflating stock levels.
The third priority is reducing return rates through AI and data analytics. Many brands are actively studying patterns such as repeat return customers or SKUs with consistently high return rates. With these insights, they can proactively block or manage such orders and significantly reduce losses.
You mentioned providing data insights to Raymond. How is Emiza leveraging automation, data analytics, or AI to help textile brands streamline inventory and order processing?
The main metric brands track is inventory turns, which measures how often inventory cycles through in a year. When brands operate across multiple warehouses, getting a unified inventory view becomes challenging. We have addressed this by bringing all channel and warehouse data into a single real-time dashboard that supports smarter planning and purchase decisions.
We have also automated the claims process, so claims are raised automatically, followed up systematically, and settled faster. These automation and data-driven tools help brands optimise inventory, reduce manual intervention, and improve overall operational efficiency.
Are you using artificial intelligence in your operations?
Yes, to some extent. Our live operations are primarily transaction-driven, but we use AI internally to improve efficiency, such as determining optimal manpower for each shift or reorganising warehouse layouts for faster picking and packing.
While AI forecasting is not yet fully reliable because forecasts depend on external and often unpredictable variables, AI is highly effective for pattern recognition and process optimisation. We use it to reduce labour dependency, improve space utilisation, and enhance internal efficiencies, which ultimately translates into cost savings for brands.
Store-based order routing is gaining momentum. What’s the rationale behind this approach, and how does it benefit textile brands with a strong retail footprint?
It’s a natural evolution. If a brand already has stores across the country, leveraging that existing inventory makes sense. It improves revenue per square foot, as the same inventory serves both offline and online orders.
Fulfilment from nearby stores also reduces delivery time and cost, and faster deliveries lower the chances of returns. However, there are challenges—store staff often prioritise in-store customers, leading to delays in dispatching online orders. Brands must ensure stores are adequately staffed and equipped to handle online fulfilment and returns efficiently.
The world is becoming increasingly conscious of sustainability. What steps is Emiza taking to reduce its carbon footprint and adopt greener logistics practices?
We focus on two key areas: energy consumption and packaging materials.
On the packaging front, most marketplaces are already shifting from plastic to paper, which naturally lowers plastic usage. Inside our warehouses, we recycle materials from returned shipments by using machines that convert returned boxes into packing filler. This allows waste packaging to be reused instead of discarded.
We have also adopted solar energy across several of our large warehouses, including facilities that span more than 100,000 square feet. At present, we generate nearly 60 per cent of our total energy requirement through solar, which has significantly reduced our carbon footprint.
