Foreign fashion labels adopt ecommerce route for India debut

Despite the government allowing 100 percent FDI in single-brand retail, many foreign

fashion brands, are tying up with leading e-tailers to enter the country. Dorothy Perkins, a UK-based fast fashion brand is the most recent example, which has exclusively partnered with Jabong.com. Jabong, backed by the German internet incubator Rocket Internet, is also selling Miss Selfridge in India. American lifestyle clothing retailer Gap Inc is in the process of finalizing a deal with e-commerce player Myntra to launch its online store in India. This discussion is running parallel with Gap's plans to rope in Arvind Brands as its local partner for offline retail here. And domestic lifestyle e-tailer Koovs launched the British youth fashion brand New Look recently in India.

Many Indian portals are keen to tie-up with global big brands to bring them to domestic audiences. This ups the portal’s popularity among fashion and brand conscious customers. While keeping prices under check to attract customers is a task, companies try to arrive this through attractive discounts. Prices of Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridges, which include women’s western wear and accessories such as handbags and footwear, for instance, are said to be fine-tuned keeping the Indian shopper in mind.

Meanwhile portals who have brought foreign brands to the Indian shore include Myntra, which has exclusively launched at least 10 foreign brands in India in the past few months, including Supra, Raised on Denim and Stanley Kane with two more international brands launches in the pipeline. The company aims to bring at least 50 foreign brands before the end of this year.