Amazon India hires Vikas Purohit as fashion category leader

With Amazon’s India arm announcing its aggressive plans to strengthen its high margin fashion business in India, the company has brought Vikas Purohit as category leader for fashion on board. Purohit has strong experience in the fashion category since he has worked for several Indian and foreign brands serving as retail head for Tommy Hilfiger, business head for Diesel at Reliance Brands, Madura Garments and Planet Retail. The aim is to compete with Flipkart-Myntra duo, Snapdeal and Jabong in the fashion space.

Despite entering the fashion space at a much later stage compared to its competitors, Amazon, over the last one year has hired acclaimed fashion designer Narendra Kumar as its creative director, watch designer Michael Foley to create the watch store and Vikram Raizada, CEO for retail at BSE-listed Tara Jewels, to head the jewellery segment as well as Manish Saksena, a former COO of Tommy Hilfiger India and co-founder of fashion portal Limeroad.com as fashion advisor.

Before becoming official title sponsor of coveted India Fashion Week organized by FDCI, Amazon India announced its plans to launch private fashion labels to take on the competition. The company is also inking exclusive partnerships with clothing brands while refining its product assortment. Amazon recently also announced that it will sell Future Group’s fashion brands such as Indigo Nation and John Miller on its site. It has developed exclusive brand stores for several fashion brands including HiDesign, Viari, Waterlily, Tommy Hilfiger luggage and many more.