Flipkart shuts Jabong; to bet on Myntra

E-commerce major Flipkart has formally shut its fashion portal Jabong.com, to focus on its lifestyle portal Myntra.

The Jabong portal, from Wednesday, is being redirected to Myntra.com. However, there has been no official announcement from Flipkart, Myntra or Jabong regarding the news.

Myntra, a Flipkart Group company, had acquired Jabong in July 2016 for $70 million in cash and Flipkart had bought Myntra in May 2014.

Following, the Walmart-Flipkart deal in 2018, sources had indicated that Walmart was mulling to kill the Jabong brand after completely merging it with Myntra. “Walmart will lay off up to 60 per cent of Jabong's 400-odd full-time employees, while it remains to be seen what whether they will retain the 50 contractual employees. They are planning to eventually kill brand Jabong, as they are of the opinion that it can comfortably be merged with the Myntra business without losing out on market share,” according to the sources.

In January 2019, Myntra-Jabong CEO stepped down and Amar Nagaram was named the Head of the Group.

According to media reports, Jabong’s web traffic claimed to have declined to 2.5 million in June 2019 from 7.5 million in January 2018 while traffic to Myntra during the same period remained unchanged at 30 million.

The mobile app downloads also declined for Jabong as compared to Myntra’s. Jabong’s app downloads declined by 12 per cent in December while the Myntra’s app downloads spiked by 40 per cent.

According to McKinsey’s FashionScope data, the Indian clothing market will be worth $59.3 billion by 2022, making it the sixth largest marketplace worldwide.

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