Via her designer home decor brand “Cocktail” Preity designs and manufactures products with a blend of aesthetics and utility, classiness and affordability and hence the unique brand name 'Cocktail' –with its Tagline being “An intoxicating blend of home accessories”. Covering a long fulfilling journey of 16 years so far and emerging as an inspiration for the aspiring women entrepreneurs this gold medallist Pharmacist has made a mark in gifting and home accessories segment. To add to her laurels, Preity was also selected in the Goldman Sachs fully funded Women entrepreneur program conducted by the prestigious ISB Hyderabad in 2011 where in she did the Management course and ranked in top 3 candidates.

“Persistence and Optimistic attitude will always take you to your goal. One only fails when they give up”, says PreityKanani, founder of Cocktail Décor, and the adage holds true for the eloquent entrepreneur who is all set to take the Home Accessories and Gifting industry by storm. Being a creatively inclined individual, Preity always wanted to be an architect or interior designer but destiny had other plans for her. But destiny had other plans and she went into pharmacy, and later turn of events compelled Preity to juggle her life and heart between her two passions, teaching English Language and her brainchild - Cocktail. Cocktail was conceived when Preity had a sudden opportunity of doing interiors most creatively and economically while shifting her house and that triggered her creativity towards this. She started her voyage as an entrepreneur with a lot of support from family and friends. She started the Brand as a retail store in 2006, but Preity soon realized that the market was all about either expensive European artifacts or cheap China products. At that time, quality, unique, affordable yet designer home accessories were not easily accessible to the mass with class, and this compelled Preity to lay the foundation of the genuine Brand ‘Cocktail’, through which she started designing and manufacturing home accessories and gifts. From doing 48-50 exhibitions pan India to supplying to some elite stores in 201823Mumbai like Tresorie and various other international platforms, catering to corporate and wedding clients, and so on, Cocktail has achieved it all under the guidance of Preity, demonstrating year-on-year exponential growth. Preity Kanani engages in an exclusive interaction with Women Entrepreneur magazine.

Give us a brief overview of Cocktail Décor and how is unique from other existing brands in the market. A premium Home Accessories brand, ‘Cocktail’ is primarily about a combination of utility with aesthetics. Coming from a non-designer background academically, my primary focus, therefore, comes from a layman point of view highlighting a house that proud women would need and love to use. Women always love a good deal, and at Cocktail, we aim to give a Thoughtful designer quality unique product that suits your pocket and your Home.

“At cocktail, we aim to give a quality unique product which is pocket friendly and makes the woman feel that she managed to get a super product at a bargain”

Share some important aspects of your leadership skills by the virtue of which you are navigating your company through ups and downs. My expertise lies in designing products from the enduser point of view. And hence putting myself in the shoes of my clients. For e.g. we were the first ones to manufacture the all-in-One starter trays comprising of a combo of plate n dip bowls with cutlery holder, toothpick holder, a place for napkins, and so on. Our very famous pani puri platter, buffet organizer, khowsuey platter, tequila trays –and many more, are also widely applauded by our valued customers.

Another concept which is our USP is that we provide a co-ordinated matching ensemble of a multitude of products that are used together or displayed together. We offer our clients matching cutlery holders/napkin trays/tissue boxes/trays/dustbin/magazine rack/ bathroom set. So as a user I don’t have to hunt or source products that go well with each other. We have a plethora of concept products which are immensely popular, such as our revolving much was and dry fruits platters, revolving dining organizers with acchar jars and salt pepper shakers, bedside trays, coaster trays, wine n cheese trays, tequila trays, and so on. Coming from an entirely different background, tell us about the most significant milestones that you have achieved so far as an entrepreneur.

Starting from scratch to taking Cocktail to newer heights coming from a totally different background is itself a milestone. However, I do feel proud of myself that in spite of going though a personal crisis and the pandemic hitting hard –I have managed to have taken a complete turnaround of my business from offline module to online- Cocktail is now having a much greater turnover than ever before. However I don’t pat myself on the back as yet as I have many more miles to go.

Having faced adversity as a single mother myself, I realized that a lot of women must be struggling too especially now, so to empower and encourage housewives to work from home and be financially independent, I started a reseller model wherein without investment or inventory, women could associate and be part of Team Cocktail and earn easily 30000/ and above from home by just using their network on phone. I have collaborated with more than 500 such enterprising women resellers and we give great business to each other. The second feather on my hat in this pandemic would be educating myself by doing several courses in social media and online sales at Amazon. I invested in my personal growth and knowledge, at the age of 55 years educated myself further I got my reward when my sales on Amazon rocketed15 times over.

How do you keep yourself well aligned with the periodic evolutions occurring within your respective industry? There are so many inspiring women designers in India and abroad. Being an avid reader and now an internet surfer too, I constantly remain aware of the current trends, colors, popular demand of products, and style of domestic as well as international markets. Of course, all new trends fail to vibe with the philosophy of the Cocktail brand. So, though we always give variety to our customers, we tend to stick to the aesthetics that brand Cocktail is associated with and known for. We feel proud when our client recognizes our products at anyone’s house and says –I know this is a Cocktail product.

Preity Kanani, Founder, Cocktail Décor

Via her designer home decor store Cocktail DécorPreity creates products with a blend of aesthetics and utility, classiness and affordability and hence the unique brand name 'Cocktail' –with its Tagline being “An intoxicating blend of home accessories”. Covering an impeccable journey so far and emerging as an inspiration for the aspiring women entrepreneurs, after being a gold medallist university topper in Pharmacy and In Systems management, Preity also got selected in the Goldman Sachs fully funded Women entrepreneur program conducted by the prestigious ISB Hyderabad in 2011 where in she did the Management course and ranked in top 3 candidates.