Jabong expects higher GMV this fiscal

Jabong expects 25 per cent higher gross merchandise value (GMV) in the year ending March 31 and has raised service levels. Compared to last year, Jabong’s net promoter score (NPS), a key measure of customer satisfaction, rose more than 50 due to faster and more consistent product deliveries, Currently, more than 80 per cent of Jabong’s orders are delivered by Myntra Logistics and Ekart, Flipkart’s logistics service, up from 10 per cent six months ago.

The improvement in Jabong’s NPS has also helped the company grow revenues as well as increase its user base by 30 per cent this financial year compared with the previous year. Jabong reported a decline of 16 per cent in revenues in the year ended March 2017.

Myntra chief executive Ananth Narayanan stated that Myntra Logistics and Ekart are much better than the logistics service Jabong was using before. So that caused both NPS to go up and costs to come down. A tech stack has been integrated so there would be two different platforms running on the same tech stack because Jabong’s previous tech system couldn’t handle the spike during the big sale events.

Flipkart bought Jabong from Rocket Internet in July 2016 for $70 million in cash. When they were separate platforms, Jabong and Myntra were arch-rivals. Some analysts have speculated that Myntra would shut down Jabong after buying it. But Narayanan has maintained that Jabong and Myntra have their own niches and appeal to differing customers.

Myntra and Jabong have turned out to Flipkart’s best acquisitions. The two specialty retailers have helped Flipkart build a monopoly in online fashion sales that arch-rival Amazon India has been unable to break despite throwing hundreds of crores of rupees in expanding its fashion business. The company will continue to sharpen the differences between the platforms. Jabong will launch two in-app stores next quarter, for designer and luxury products. It will also offer faster product deliveries and concierge services.