Myntra-owned Jabong to focus on luxury brands

Around two years after acquiring Jabong from Global Fashion Group for $70 million (about ~4.7 billlion), Flipkart-owned fashion retailer Myntra is planning to increase differentiation between the two brands in order to win new customers.

Myntra will continue to focus on the mass premium fashion segment while Jabong will target luxury and global brands along with the premium fashion segment.

“We have continued to focus on the mass premium segment but within that we are specialising in global brands, luxury, and premium fashion,” said Gunjan Soni, chief marketing officer, Myntra and head of the Jabong unit.

According to Soni, after 18 months of the acquisition, customers of Jabong continue to be largely different from those on Myntra, with just 2 per cent increase in overlap.

Jabong’s focus on high-end fashion products may result in a slowdown but this is going to become a focus area for Myntra.

The firm said Myntra brand would begin driving adoption among the next wave of online shoppers in the country. Myntra and Jabong have a combined base of 12 million customers, a subset of 100 million customers Flipkart claims to have.

Myntra will continue to drive the group’s push into offline fashion retail, opening stores for its in-house brands as well as for brands with which it has tied up. “It is immaterial for customers whether we offer experiences through our store or other brands. We want to work with brands to offer online and offline convergence in the most powerful way possible. We will not limit ourselves to the brands that we sell,” said Soni.

While Myntra has opened its first offline store for its in-house brand Roadster in Bengaluru, the firm also runs stores for Barcelona-based fashion brand Mango in India. Myntra is planning to sign up more such deals where it acts as the master franchisee for global brands and is willing to supply apparel to third-party sellers if brands ask them to.

The focus on in-house brands along with partnerships with global brands is driving Myntra’s margins