Jabong to retail ASICS Tiger through its portal

Japanese sportswear brand ASICS has tied up with online fashion portal Jabong to sell its lifestyle brand ASICS Tiger. The brand will be available only through the online platform in India initially. The ASICS Tiger will bring in sports lifestyle footwear range for the street fashion savvy market in India. This segment, as per Rajat Khurana, director, ASICS India, has been growing at 19-20 per cent year-on-year. To launch it through the e-commerce channel was a strategic decision for the company. It made sense because the brand is targeted at the young customer in the age group 16-35 years whose buying patterns keep evolving.

Last year the company had opened its mono-brand stores in the country after it got approval for single-brand retail. Further stores will be opened depending on the Japanese company’s global strategy. ASICS has six standalone stores in the country. Plans are to increase the store count to about 10-12 stores by the end of the year. Also, the company has been getting about 15 per cent sales from the e-commerce channel and it is expected to go up to 20 per cent.

Jabong, meanwhile is working hard to put its laagering business back in shape. In 2014, Jabong was merged with four other international online fashion businesses by Rocket Internet and Swedish investment bank Kinnevik to create a company called Global Fashion Group that was worth €2.7 billion (around Rs 21,600 crores) then. GFG raised €150 million (about Rs 1,060 crores) from Rocket Internet and Kinnevik last July. And last week, GFG raised 339 million dollars (Rs 2,250 crores) from Kinnevik and Rocket Internet at a valuation of 1.13 billion dollars (Rs 7,526 crores) . This new pricing indicates a dip in Jabong’s valuation.

The last two years, has seen Jabong’s fortunes have fallen dramatically. Despite launching as late as 2011, Jabong was giving tough competition to older rival Myntra by March 2014. However, the company’s entire senior management team, including all of its co-founders, left and its sales growth slumped. Jabong lost significant market share to Myntra, Amazon and Flipkart (which owns Myntra). Jabong’s sales growth fell to just 7 per cent in 2015, from 136 per cent in 2014.

In fact, to turn around business, Jabong hired a new senior management team including a CEO, Sanjeev Mohanty, from Benetton India. Jabong also signed up investment bank Avendus in a bid to attract independent capital from private equity partners or strategic investors, according to three people close to the matter.