Apparel retailers log on to e-platforms for growth

The e-commerce story in India is taking an interesting turn. Now brick-and-mortar retail biggies such as Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, DLF Brands, Future Group and Reliance Brands are planning to take head-on plunge into the e-tailing, existing

specialized online retailers are already racing ahead.

Aditya Birla Group's Madura, which owns brands such as Louis Philippe and Allen Solly, has just gone live with an e-commerce project trendin.com. And DLF Brands will launch its portal aveneu.com later this year. Reliance Brands recently kick-started a portal to sell American footwear and accessories brand Steve Madden, which will be followed by separate e-commerce sites for Quiksilver and Superdry from its brand portfolio. And Future Group is eyeing an e-commerce play along with launching new labels, with the aim of making his Future Lifestyle & Fashion a one billion dollars (over 5,000 crores) unit by revenue within two years.

A recent analysis has shown that 122 of the top 500 e-commerce companies in the world are from the apparel space. However, sceptics say this obviously doesn’t mean a large number of players will be able to co-exist profitably. Apart from leading players, venture funding has almost dried up for most others, with many ventures either getting acquired by bigger players or shutting shop.

In such a scenario, big players like Madura, Reliance, DLF and Future Group have an advantage of making it big on the e-platform given their solid backing in terms of finance, logistics and management. No wonder, Reliance which operates a string of global high street brands locally, has been insisting on online rights as part of the new joint venture or licensing deals to open stores in India.

According to a recent report by Allegro Capital, "Online fashion retailing emerged as the largest specialist segment within the domestic e-commerce, where 52 start-ups attracted 700 million dollars (Rs 3,799 crores) in investments from venture capitalists in the past three years. About 220 million dollars (Rs 1,194 crores) went into 21 apparel and accessories e-tailers."