Myntra.com is spicing up its premium fashion brand positioning with an exclusive line-up of brands, strengthening its dominance in online fashion sales where the etailer currently holds close to 30 per cent market share.

After its acquisition by India’s largest e-tailer Flipkart this May, the combined entity holds 50 per cent market share of online fashion sales, which is expected to rise to 70 per cent over the next 12-18 months.

Myntra is set to launch an exclusive line of Harvard University branded sports casual wear in time for the festival season. “Harvard University has licensed its brand exclusively to Myntra for three years. We will create a collection for Harvard University, starting with sports casuals including tees, sweatshirts and track-pants, followed by a line of sports casual work-wear that will have shirts, trousers and denims,” Ganesh Subramanian, COO, Myntra.com, told Business Line .

Pointing out that brands such as UCLA merchandise and Oxford University apparel are already popular among the youth in India, he said: “The Harvard brand is an aspiration for the Indian youth. With this line, we are creating a fashion brand that goes beyond Bollywood.”

Myntra will also introduce the Autumn/Winter collection of British fashion retailer New Look this October. The collection, which includes men’s and women’s wear, is priced from ₹500 to ₹10,000, making it affordable to a larger consumer demographic.

New Look

“We are trying to fulfil the fashion aspirations of the youth in the 18-25 age profile with a combination of popular international and national brands on our Website, many of which are exclusive to our website for a period of one-three years,” said Subramanian.

Some of the exclusive international fashion brands that are already selling on Myntra are Stanley Kane, Supra, Superdry apparel, New Balance, 883 Police, JanSport, Time Force, Desigual, Scotch and Soda. “We will be introducing a new international fashion brand on Myntra every fortnight,” said Subramanian.

Myntra currently has over 500 leading Indian and international brands e-tailing 60,000 styles, and is targeting $1 billion in revenue by March 2016. It also has exclusive fashion merchandise from Indian celebrity/designer brands such as HRX by Hrithik Roshan, Indian by Manish Arora, Iinterpret by Anita Dongre, Wills Signature Collection and Fabindia.

Forging partnerships

Exclusive partnerships with brands are becoming increasingly popular. While Flipkart sold over a million units of Moto G, Moto E and Moto X phones and more recently 35,000 units of Xiaomi Mi3 phones, earlier this week Amazon announced that it is the exclusive partner of Microsoft’s entertainment products in India.

E-commerce firms are creating a strong consumer pull by partnering exclusively with popular international and national brands, wherein, the exclusive availability of the brand for a limited period on the portal creates much more interest in the brand than it would otherwise, says Saloni Nangia, President, KSA Technopak. “It also allows the brand and the portal to jointly invest in marketing spend, creating greater visibility for the brand and drawing greater consumer traffic to the portal,” she added.

Consolidating the market

Fashion as a category is growing fast and is estimated to beat the top selling electronics category in the $3.1-billion Indian e-commerce market, say industry experts. However, in the $500-billion Indian retail sector, the online segment’s contribution is less than 0.50 per cent. Flipkart, which entered the fashion category two years ago, has committed to investing $100 million in the business over the next two years, an investment that will be extended to Myntra as well.

Saurabh Srivastava, Director PwC India, said: “If you look at the synergies between Flipkart and Myntra, the former is doing very well in electronics and the latter is doing very well in fashion. These exclusive partnerships will result in consolidation allowing consumers to select from a few brands.”

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