Digital transformation in the fashion industry has, for a long time, been a lopsided affair. Over the last decade, billions of dollars have been funneled into the “edges” of the business: hyper-efficient logistics, globalized supply chains, and high-frequency performance marketing. Yet, for all this technological advancement, the core of the digital shopping experience remains remarkably fragile. That fragility is most evident at the moment of checkout, where a persistent, unresolved hesitation continues to cost the industry billions.
This hesitation the “Will it fit me?” dilemma is the specific problem Dhruti Nukala has set out to solve. As the founder of Trylle, Nukala is not building a marketplace or a logistics tool. Instead, she is engineering the “experience layer” of e-commerce, moving the resolution of uncertainty upstream to the point before a purchase is ever made.
The ₹92,500 Crore Shadow: Decoding the Returns Crisis
To understand the work of Dhruti Nukala, one must first understand the scale of the inefficiency she is targeting. In 2026, India’s fashion e-commerce market is projected to reach an inflection point, with valuations climbing toward $100 billion by 2032. However, this growth is accompanied by a massive, often invisible, operational drag.
Return rates in Indian fashion e-commerce currently sit between 25% and 40%. Recent industry estimates suggest that these returns cost brands nearly ₹92,500 crore annually. Critically, close to 40% of these returns are not due to defective products or shipping delays; they are “fit and styling” failures. Shoppers order three sizes of the same dress to find one that fits a behavior known as “bracketing” or they receive a garment that looks fundamentally different on their body than it did on a 5’10” studio model.
For Dhruti Nukala, these are not logistical failures; they are experience failures. Most brands have optimized their checkout funnels to be as frictionless as possible, but they have ignored the cognitive friction the shopper feels. Trylle was born from the realization that if you solve for confidence, the operational costs of returns will naturally dissolve.
Engineering “Readiness” Over Hype
The fashion-tech space is often cluttered with “gimmicky” AR tools virtual mirrors that glitch or avatars that look like video game characters from the early 2000s. Dhruti Nukala has taken a more rigorous, B2B SaaS approach.
Trylle is designed as a lightweight, “invisible” infrastructure. It integrates directly into existing storefronts (Shopify, Magento, or headless stacks) through a plug-in. The goal is to provide a “practitioner-led” experience. Rather than redirecting a user to a third-party app, Trylle embeds styling logic and virtual try-ons directly into the product page.
The differentiation in Nukala’s approach lies in the data. Trylle’s styling AI isn’t trained on generic fashion trends; it is trained exclusively on each brand’s specific catalog, visual language, and merchandising rules. This ensures that the recommendations feel native to the brand, mirroring the experience of an in-store personal shopper who understands the specific “cut” and “drape” of that brand’s silhouette.
The Sustainability of Precision
In 2026, sustainability is no longer an optional “green” label; it is a regulatory and consumer mandate. However, much of the sustainability conversation focuses on fabrics organic cotton vs. recycled polyester. Dhruti Nukala argues that the most impactful sustainability move a brand can make is to stop shipping items that will inevitably be sent back.
Reverse logistics is a carbon-intensive process. It involves double the packaging, double the transport emissions, and often leads to “dead stock” where returned items are discarded because they are no longer in season. By addressing fit anxiety before checkout, Trylle acts as a sustainability tool by default. Nukala’s philosophy is pragmatic: precision in the experience layer leads to efficiency in the physical layer. Fewer returns mean cleaner inventory cycles and a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
Dhruti Nukala: From Research to Execution
The development of Trylle was not an overnight occurrence. Nukala’s approach was shaped by extensive consumer behavior research and an analysis of brand workflows. She identified a recurring pattern: fashion loses its “intent” when it moves from a physical rack to a digital grid.
In a physical boutique, a customer can touch the fabric, hold a garment against their frame, and receive immediate styling feedback. Online, that context is stripped away, replaced by flat images and generic “You may also like” algorithms. Dhruti Nukala realized that brands weren’t struggling with product quality; they were struggling with “experience translation.”
By bridging the gap between fashion intuition and engineering precision, she has enabled D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) brands to regain that lost intent. Her work allows a brand to sell a “look” and a “fit,” not just a SKU (Stock Keeping Unit).
The $100 Billion Inflection Point
As the Indian apparel market continues its rapid expansion, three forces are making Nukala’s work unavoidable:
- The Rise of the Alpha Shopper: Gen Z and Millennial consumers in India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities now expect personalization. They are no longer satisfied with generic sizing charts; they want to know how a specific brand’s “Medium” fits their specific body type.
- Margin Pressure: With the rising cost of customer acquisition (CAC), brands can no longer afford the “burn” associated with high return rates. Every return is a hit to the bottom line that traditional marketing can’t fix.
- Technological Maturity: 2026 sees the widespread adoption of high-speed mobile internet and powerful smartphone sensors, making high-fidelity virtual try-ons a reality for the average consumer, not just those with high-end devices.
Against this backdrop, Dhruti Nukala is positioning Trylle as more than just a tool. She sees it as “experience infrastructure” a quiet, foundational layer that reshapes how trust is built online.
In the high-speed world of fashion e-commerce, “patience” is a rare commodity. Yet, Nukala’s approach to building Trylle has been one of deliberate, durable growth. By focusing on the unglamorous work of reducing return rates and improving conversion quality, she is tackling the industry’s most expensive problems head-on.
Through upskilling the digital experience, Dhruti Nukala is ensuring that technology is used not just to move products faster, but to move them with more certainty. In a landscape often distracted by the “next big thing,” her work serves as a reminder that the most revolutionary innovations are often the ones that simply make a system work the way it was always supposed to.
