Brands
Sameer Wanchoo zips into VIP as chief marketing officer
MUMBAI: Earlier this month, Sameer Wanchoo packed his bags—and unpacked a bigger mandate. The seasoned marketer joined VIP Industries as chief marketing officer, taking over the brand cockpit of India’s luggage major from early December.
Wanchoo brings with him a long-haul career in consumer goods, honed across mass, premium and everything in between. Most recently, he spent over seven years at Eureka Forbes, where as CMO he helped sharpen growth engines across categories, channels and consumer cohorts.
Before that, he clocked stints at CavinKare—twice. First as VP marketing, overseeing personal care, foods and beverages, and earlier as GM marketing for hair care, where brands such as Chik, Nyle, Meera and Karthika kept their shine in a brutally competitive aisle. In between came a global toy turn at Mattel as category manager for infant and pre-school, and a retail baptism at Big Bazaar’s Food Bazaar in the west zone.
His early years read like a marketing boot camp: product management at Dabur (via Balsara Home Products), sales at ESPN Star Sports, and media planning at Starcom—before digital became dinner-table conversation.
At VIP, Wanchoo will be expected to do more than polish logos. The brief spans brand, product, digital, research, media and P&L—no small suitcase. With travel back on the boil and consumers trading up, the timing is propitious, the competition unforgiving.
From soap to suitcases, vacuums to voyages, Wanchoo has sold it all. Now he must make VIP travel faster, lighter and louder. No baggage allowed.
Brands
Ekart expands IKEA partnership with EV deliveries in Chennai
3PL to handle 600 plus products with 48 hour delivery via EV fleet.
MUMBAI: Flatpacks are going electric and your sofa might now arrive with a smaller carbon footprint. Ekart has expanded its partnership with IKEA to power last-mile deliveries in Chennai, doubling down on speed, scale and sustainability in one of India’s key urban markets. Under the collaboration, Ekart will manage end-to-end large-format deliveries for IKEA across the city using a 100 per cent dedicated electric vehicle fleet. The move makes Chennai the second major market after NCR-Delhi where Ekart handles IKEA’s last-mile logistics, signalling a broader rollout of EV-led supply chains.
The mandate is no small load. Ekart will oversee deliveries for over 600 products from IKEA’s catalogue, ranging from furniture to home décor—categories that demand specialised handling and precision logistics.
Backed by its technology-driven fulfilment network, Ekart is targeting deliveries within a 48-hour window, offering real-time tracking and end-to-end visibility from warehouse to doorstep. The focus is clear: faster turnarounds without compromising on control or customer experience.
The EV-first model also aligns with both companies’ sustainability goals, as urban logistics increasingly shifts towards zero-emission solutions. For IKEA, which continues to expand its omnichannel presence in India, reliable and eco-conscious last-mile delivery is becoming central to scale.
For Ekart, the partnership reinforces its positioning as an enterprise-grade logistics player in large-format commerce. The company already supports over 1,800 retail, D2C and enterprise brands, spanning last-mile delivery, part-truckload services and warehousing.
As India’s logistics ecosystem evolves, this collaboration highlights a growing trend: delivery is no longer just about distance, it’s about efficiency, experience and increasingly, emissions.
