Jabong partners with National Basketball Association

Rising number of e-commerce players in India have increased their marketing spends

and sports as a property remains one of the major interest among them. Players like Amazon, Flipkart, Quikr, GoDaddy have already made significant investments in IPL either through sponsorships or through ad spot buying. And now Jabong India has tied up with National Basketball Association (NBA) to launch an online store in India which will sell NBA merchandise.

NBAstore.in will be an NBA branded destination within Jabong.com. The platform will offer a collection of approximately 200 NBA products including shorts, jerseys and T-shirts for men and women priced between Rs 1,400 to Rs 14,000. The idea behind associating with NBA instead of IPL, according to company officials was to promote other sports apart from cricket.

As per industry estimates, on an average the marketing budget for most of the e-commerce companies is close to 20 percent of their revenues. The main objective for these companies to opt for sports properties is to gain traction beyond digital as a medium and make their presence felt among mass media. Analysts believe that marketing will evolve as the sector evolves in the future. The engagement therefore will be beyond digital and would include marketing mix of radio, TV, print and OOH.

As per estimates, while Amazon has invested close to Rs 40 crores including on-ground and on-air association with IPL, Flipkart has invested in ad spots in the range between Rs 4.75-5 lakh. Quikr bought the title sponsorship for Delhi Daredevils for close to Rs 13 crores while also buying ad spots during the tournament. GoDaddy has bought ad spots and Paytm in association with Pepsi investing close to Rs 5 crore on the tournament. E-com players are now expected to cash in on forthcoming sports properties like FIFA and India’s tour post IPL.