Avantika Vashistha

Category Manager with 5 years of experience building and scaling e-commerce categories across Food & Beverages and Fashion. Experienced in end-to-end category ownership across whitespace identification, assortment strategy, brand acquisition, pricing, commercial negotiations, merchandising and monetization. Proven track record of building categories from scratch, scaling high-growth businesses and delivering against aggressive GMV and revenue targets.

Category Manager – Food & Beverages + Fashion at CRED (2025-11 – Present)

• Own ₹200Cr+ yearly GMV and ₹22Cr yearly CRED revenue across 45+ brands and 1,000 SKUs, achieving 121% of GMV target and 125% of revenue target.
• Own the end-to-end category growth charter, identify whitespace, define category and assortment strategy, build the right brand/product mix, negotiate commercials and pricing, ensure inventory readiness, drive merchandising and promotions, and deliver GMV and revenue targets.
• Scaled monthly GMV from ₹10Cr to ₹17Cr in 10 months, while onboarding 20 new brands across F&B and Fashion including Tata, Yoga Bar, Farmley and Snitch.
• Built Kids Fashion from scratch to ₹3Cr monthly GMV within 3 months, identifying whitespace from adjacent Toys demand and onboarding 10 brands.
• Launched Staples from scratch in July'26 and scaled it to ₹2.5Cr monthly GMV within 2 months by onboarding 8 brands while solving low-margin and high-volumetric-weight constraints through pack-size innovation.
• Leverage Tableau, Databricks and Mixpanel to drive data-backed assortment and pricing decisions.

Associate Category Manager – Fashion at CRED (2023-10 – 2025-11)

• Owned ₹7Cr+ monthly GMV and ₹1.51Cr monthly CRED revenue, contributing 60% of overall Fashion's GMV and revenue, with ownership across assortment, brand acquisition, pricing, merchandising and commercial negotiations.
• Built Women's Fashion from scratch to ₹1.5Cr monthly GMV in 3 months, establishing the category through strategic brand acquisition and assortment expansion; scaled it to ₹4Cr monthly GMV within 6 months.
• Onboarded 40+ Fashion brands across key categories, including GIVA, Timex, Woodland, Palmonas and Puma, significantly expanding assortment and category selection.
• Increased advertising take rate from 5% in Oct 2023 to 20% by Oct 2025, identifying and driving monetization opportunities across partner brands.

Strategic Alliances & Partnerships at Times Prime (Times of India Group) (2022-03 – 2023-10)

• Owned the end-to-end sales cycle for 35+ strategic brand partnerships, from prospecting and outreach to pitching, commercial negotiations, closure, onboarding and relationship management across technology, fintech, retail, food delivery and lifestyle.
• Delivered ₹15 Cr+ revenue, exceeding annual targets by 25% through strategic partner acquisition, campaign monetization, commercial negotiations and end-to-end stakeholder management.
• Conceptualized and executed flagship campaigns including Times Prime Member Fest and Power Week, driving 3x user engagement, delivering an average 4x ROAS and reducing customer acquisition costs by 25% for participating brands through targeted campaign design and execution.

PGDM in International Business Specialization: Marketing – Birla Institute of Management and Technology (2020 – 2022)

B.Com (Hons) – Dayalbagh Educational University, Agra (2016 – 2019)