Ammfy is an online marketplace for major retail brands of fashion, beauty, and wellness, made to offer customers a centralised location for all their fashion needs. Their mission is to create a unique and personalised online shopping experience for their customers.
In a conversation with Ammfy Founder/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Charindu Edirisuriya, he explained their vision for the platform: “My goal is to build the fashion market in Sri Lanka; the end goal for Ammfy is to have all the fashion brands centralised in one spot and the first step to that is building up Ammfy.”
Edirisuriya is a final-year undergraduate at the Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT). During his first year, he had a vague idea for his brainchild Ammfy. Back in 2018, the platform was just another start-up, but he had big plans. “I wanted to turn my start-up into a product company, and one of the trending niches that I witnessed at the time was related to fashion.”
Many brands in the beauty industry operate solely on social media, as they lack a platform or website for themselves. Edirisuriya told us that Ammfy gets these brands onboard and explains to them in depth about what structure is most likely to work for them. “If you own an online store, with our system, you can precisely monitor and organise your sales, stocks, customers – everything.”
On their website, you will see a curated variety of subcategories for clothes, jewellery, footwear, and whatever else you could want in terms of fashion, with the brand of the item mentioned on the listing. They currently have over 30 vendors onboard – Closet by A, The Pandora’s Box, Joeys, to name a few – and are planning to expand to house over 70 vendors by the end of 2021. “To have an attractive platform, we need to have more vendors on board; we plan on securing at least 80 renowned brands on the platforms.”
Ammfy offers brands a countless number of features that would be convenient for them, as well as aid in developing their brand name further. Edirisuriya noted that these businesses feel empowered when their brand is managed attentively, which fuels them on to strive for the best.
Usually, when listing on an online platform, businesses would typically have to direct the platform on what they want, along with sending in the relevant pictures and writing up content. Ammfy offers its users an app, which they can use to log in and manage their online store, which Edirisuriya commented that no one in Sri Lanka offers yet. Customers can even opt to have their inventory uploaded onto the website straight off their social media posts. It’s noteworthy to add that all of these features are entirely automated, as Ammfy uses innovative technology to provide their vendors and customers with a convenient experience.
Edirisuriya talked about their bestselling feature: “If you are a brand that doesn’t have your own website, you can obtain a free website off our platform.” He used an example to explain this concept “If you type in joey.ammfy.com, only that brand’s products will be displayed on the platform.”
Other interesting features that the website offers include social media marketing with an impressive audience reach and product variations. The platform is also capable of chatting with customers and performing tasks like accepting customised orders and responding to customer inquiries. “When we receive a new order, an automated message is sent to the vendor so they can prepare the goods for delivery. Once that is sorted, the customer gets an automated text informing them.”
Apart from that, Edirisuriya added that they have introduced Instagram shopping, where customers can click on a product on Instagram and they will be redirected to the brand’s website provided by Ammfy.
The sign-up process for vendors is very simple; all details are provided on the website, including quick tutorials on how to manoeuvre the platform, and once the brand has signed up, Edirisuriya stated that they do a background check on the brand to ensure that their customers are being offered genuine products.
Edirisuriya plans on branding up the name of Ammfy so that the platform will be more recognised locally. They aim to target larger brand names, as well as provide a platform to small businesses and up-and-coming local entrepreneurs in the fashion industry.
