Flipkart-owned online fashion retailer Myntra is scaling up its brand value by adding the luxury segment in its offerings. It will now be selling designer sarees, lehengas, gowns and kurta sets from leading fashion designers like Ritu Kumar, Masaba Gupta, Namrata Joshipura and Gopi Vaid. Myntra has entered into a strategic partnership with Pernia’s Pop Up Shop, a luxury fashion retailer, owned by Purple Style Labs.
This move would definitely give a huge boost to Myntra since it already has a large share of women’s dresses and garments in the overall product mix. Currently, around 65% of revenues on the Myntra site is accounted for by apparel. Footwear and accessories are the next, in that order. The site has recently added products focused on kids. Personal care is another product category introduced. Within the apparel category, women’s wear accounts for up to 35% of the sales. Thus, it makes sense for the company to expand this segment by moving up the value chain. The price of dresses in the new luxury category may be as high as ₹1.5 lakh. In terms of geographical reach within the country, states like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and NCR region figure at the top contributing to the orders being placed on the Myntra site.
Interestingly, Myntra’s executives claim they are not seeing any signs of a slowdown in the country’s economy or a shrinking of demand, at least as far as the products being sold on their platform are concerned.
According to Ayyappan Rajagopal, head of business at Myntra-Jabong, the revenue from premium wear has grown three-fold, year-on-year. The number of searches for premium wear is higher by four times.
Looking at the market, the estimated market value for apparels in the country is a staggering ₹1,50,000 crore. Myntra has identified premium wear as the major contributor to the growth of its products offering. A combination of ethnic wear and premium segmentation may push up its revenues in the coming years.
The present partnership with Purple Style Labs is not the first one Myntra has entered into. It has similar tie-ups with brands like H&M, Under Armour and Dorothy Perkins. It has added Spanish high-fashion brand Desigual also recently. While these are international brands, there are plans afoot to add Indian brands as well. These may include Neerus, Jharonka by Craftsvilla, Meena Bazaar and Tribes India.
Another interesting fact is Purple Style Labs is backed by Binny Bansal, one of the co-founders of Flipkart, which owns Myntra.