The e-tailing market in India is heading for further consolidation. Fashion portal Zovi.com has announced a merger with Mumbai-based online retailer Inkfruit to strengthen its position in the Internet consumer space and improve profitability.

Bangalore-based Zovi.com , founded by Manish Chopra, has also raised $10 million in its third round of funding from its existing investors SAIF Partners and Tiger Global. So far Zovi has received funds aggregating to $25 million.

According to Chopra, the merger was facilitated by SAIF Partners, which has investments in Inkfruit as well as Zovi.com . With this, the entire team at Inkfruit along with its founders Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai will join the Zovi group.

“This (merger) will help us create a strong private label online fashion company. While the brand names will not change, the company will see some changes on the management level,” Chopra said.

The integration will help the businesses leverage each others strengths, product lines and customer bases to scale up rapidly. Inkfruit, which started as an online player selling customised garments and accessories for the youth, has entered the offline route by opening ‘shop in shop’ in retail chain Lifestyle. It also runs standalone stores in malls and high streets under the same brand name. Meanwhile, Zovi caters to all customer segments.

The combined entity will operate out of two centres, Bangalore and Gurgaon with a satellite office in Mumbai to support the regional sourcing and logistics functions.

According to Technopak, the e-commerce space will witness change as players will reposition themselves aggressively to grab market share through mergers and acquisitions.

The year 2012 saw a number of acquisitions such as Healthkart taking over madeinhealth, Yebhi.com acquiring stylishyou.com and Snapdeal taking over esportsbuy.com .

Priyanka.pani@thehindu.co.in

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