Ecommerce firms push private labels for growth

Aiming to lead the pack and turn profitable, ecommerce companies are focusing on private labels to achieve growth targets and attract investments. For instance, leading fashion e-retailer Myntra has more than 10 in-house brands in the fashion and lifestyle category of men, women and children. These include Roadster, Dressberry, Anouk, Mast & Harbour, Kook N Keech, Yellow Kites, Invictus and HRX by Hrithik Roshan. And to popularise them, the company has roped in celebrities and is eyeing partnerships with other ecommerce players apart from launching brick-and-mortar stores of some of these in-house brands.

They are expanding the portfolio by adding about few more labels this year. This would also include a women’s footwear label and an innerwear brand. Flipkart too has launched various in-house products in electronics, lifestyle, and home category and it happens to be the first e-tailer to launch its own line of tablets and smart phones under the brand Digiflip in 2012.

Domestic players like Flipkart-Myntra, Snapdeal and Jabong are busy strengthening their high-margin fashion portfolio. Amazon, the American ecommerce giant plans to launch its own private fashion labels to take on competition. A recent report by Google-Forrester said India will have 100 million online shoppers by 2016 and India's e-tailing market will touch 15 billion dollars (about Rs 92,600 crores) by then, up from just about three billion dollars (over Rs 18,500 crores) now even as the customer base is expected to grow to 100 million by 2016 from 35 million this calendar.