Frido bets on category creation as it preps for Rs 200 crore run, enters footwear market

New Delhi: Comfort is a concept that is complex to convey to consumers in the country. In India, the idea of comfort is yet to gain full traction. And Frido, a mobility direct-to-consumers (D2C) brand, is preparing to establish an early-market dominance. 

Owned by Arcatron Mobility, Frido is a brand that floats across a netizen’s feed on social media frequently. The business built on insoles will soon foray into the full-blown, cutthroat competitive category - footwear. 

Sharing its plans to fire up its marketing engines in this direction, Ganesh Sonawane, co-founder and CEO, Frido, shared that the company registered a three-digit growth in FY25. Slated to be a Rs 200 crore brand soon, Frido is gearing up to push an entire product chain of orthopaedic footwear into the market. 

“Our products enhance the daily lives of people by solving issues like neck pain, back pain, and its ilk,” said Sonawane. Frido’s roots, associated with a company that manufactures wheelchairs, helped the brand understand the market in a much better way. 

"Because the whole human body weight passes through your feet, we entered the D2C market with insoles for shoes. We soon became the market leader in that category,” Sonawane told BestMediaInfo.com. 

Heavy on awareness

Frido adheres to a digital-first strategy which heavily relies on awareness. Because the brand creates a small category, identifying ortho-related ailments, they go very heavy with awareness marketing, Sonawane shared. 

Decoding the mechanics of this strategy, Sonawane said, “We've developed a comprehensive system where we begin by addressing a problem, then seamlessly integrate our solution within the video. This process typically leads to roughly 3-5% of viewers converting into customers, and this cycle is continuously repeated.”

Entering the footwear industry

Abiding by the textbook advice that any startup gets – scalability drives profit – Frido, too, plans to build a higher base to scale. What started with a monthly sales of Rs 35 lakhs in the insoles category has now reached roughly Rs 4 crores in sales a month. 

“This will build the foundation for us to enter the ortho footwear market,” the co-founder and CEO said. Explaining the idea, Sonawane stated, “An insole is just one component of a shoe, which has many elements. We've realised that insoles alone cannot fully address issues like plantar fasciitis, flat feet, or even general casual walking needs. While insoles can improve comfort, the shoe's design itself must possess specific characteristics, which we're now exploring.” 

“We've established brand equity in insoles, but our intention was never to remain confined to that small category. It wouldn't be efficient to invest heavily in building a brand for just a limited product line. However, because consumers now associate us with innovation and footwear solutions, they're more likely to adopt our shoes compared to if we launched as an entirely new brand simply claiming comfort,” he added. 

What Frido is imbibing into its marketing strategy is category creation. First, the brand nurtures the product under the ambit of a small category before using that category as a portal to enter a larger or “main” category. According to Sonawane, this is how the brand ended up eyeing the footwear category. 

Media mix

Frido assiduously customises its marketing spends depending on the stage at which the product is. When creating a niche category for a new product, Frido allocates a substantial chunk of resources to marketing. Once it gets stable and established, the marketing spends are then channelled in a different, new direction. 

During the product’s awareness incline, “a high level of video creation is done around the product, through the medium of which the product is catapulted into the consumers’ brains. 

Predominantly, the brand’s marketing functions appear on X, Instagram, and Facebook. This is because the demographic that engages with Frido includes fairly young customers. Quantifying it, 90% of media spend for Frido is done on Meta, as shared by Sonawane. 

Due to this reason, Frido is a “heavily-gifted brand,” Sonawane deduced, since it is the young generation that dominates the netizens on social media. Sharing his plans to customise the media mix for Frido, Sonawane revealed, “Within families, our products are often given as gifts, with people using their first salaries to gift them to their parents. Frido is a brand frequently gifted within families. 

However, we have a relatively small market share among the 40+ age group, which possesses greater purchasing power. This presents a significant opportunity for us, as we're already performing well with younger demographics. We believe that by expanding into traditional marketing channels, we can effectively reach and convert older age groups as well.”

Another reason that Sonawane attributed to the brand’s demographics being “fairly young” is that “the younger generation is a lot more conscious about personal well-being and self-care.”

Frido’s brick-and-mortar plans

Frido plans to resort to traditional marketing channels to tap into older consumers, who can become potential direct consumers. While television is yet to find a spotlight in Frido’s grand stage of marketing, a store is soon going to pop up in Pune. 

Elaborating on the transition from a completely digital presence to establishing an edifice, Sonawane said, “Frido’s products are essentially touch and feel. Especially the new category – footwear – that we are seeking to enter in.” 

“We are going to have a doctor present in our offline stores who will scan your requirements and assess it to give you the right solution from our store,” the co-founder of the brand told BestMediaInfo.com. Frido’s aims to have a high success rate in sales with the brick-and-mortar store in place. 

The current success rate

Sonawane also shared that Frido currently receives 5000 orders a day, of which 1500 come from existing customers. “For us, the real customer is who buys the second time. That is the real proof of your success,” Sonawane said. Currently, our product satisfaction rate is upwards of 80%, Sonawane said. 

Frido is also visible on e-commerce and quick commerce platforms, including Zepto, Blinkit, and Swiggy Instamart. One-third of the total marketing budget is allocated to e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms. 

Putting things around e-com and quick-com into perspective, the CEO said, “Our products are built around very relevant use cases that often have very high search volumes on e-commerce platforms. Hence, products seamlessly fit in these categories. 

E-commerce markets currently lack high-quality and unique products and Frido perfectly fits into this. Furthermore, we use e-commerce platforms to build brand trust while also focusing on ensuring inventory is available as close to the customer as possible.”