Amazon India launches designer clothing store

After partnering India Fashion Week as its main sponsor, Amazon India has now launched a designer clothing store in association with the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI). The idea is to choose talent from different fashion schools, as well as established designers to sell on the platform. To begin with, the online store will be launched with about 20 designers, which would later be increased to 100 over the next few months.

With Amazon India announcing aggressive plans to strengthen its high margin fashion business in India, the company recently brought Vikas Purohit as the category leader for fashion, on board. Amazon now plans to invest Rs 1,155 crores to further establish its India presence. The company, in a filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) last week, said that it is raising funds through a rights issue to its parent.

With fashion emerging as the key category driving high margins, online as well as offline retailers are innovating to cash in on the opportunity. While Flipkart acquired Myntra to establish its fashion business, Snapdeal recently took over fashion platform Exclsuively.in. This is not the first time that an online player is associated with the fashion event. Even Delhi-based Snapdeal is an associate sponsor of the Bangalore Fashion Week. Emerging and leading fashion designers too have found ecommerce as a lucrative medium to reach out to a large number of customers with their exclusive web-only collections at affordable prices.