18 BRAND WORLD MUMBAI | THURSDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2018 > ROMITA MAJUMDAR Mumbai, 28 November G iven the recent flurry of developments within e- commerce giant Flipkart, the future of fashion marketplaces Myntra and Jabong is being hotly debated. Will there be just one brand standing at the end of the reshuffle? Will Myntra and Jabong be subsumed as minor labels within the larger cover of Flipkart Fashion or will both find their way into the over- flowing bin of trashed digital brands? Under Walmart, the majority stakeholder in Flipkart, the future of Myntra and Jabong is uncertain. While Flipkart has its own fashion marketplace and an exclusive band of private labels and brand partnerships, Myntra and Jabong have added heft to its fashion play in recent years. The two operated as separate entities until recently, but it has just been announced that their technology, revenue, marketing and creative teams will be combined. Myntra has been driving Flipkart’s offline push by set- ting up retail stores in several cities and with Jabong, has brought in about 12 million-odd customers, according to its own estimates, into Flipkart’s fold. This is still a small subset of the 100 million customers that par- ent Flipkart claims to have, but their influence on the fashion market has been significant. However e-commerce ana- lysts do not see much of an impact, in the eventuality of their dissolution or deletion from Flipkart’s fold. This is because digital brands do not have the same emotional con- nection with consumers as tra- ditional brands do, they say. Two examples illustrate the point. Brand stickiness is best embodied in the well-docu- mented Thums Up-Coke story in the country. Even when the global cola giant sought to shut- ter the brand down, it could not do so given its mass appeal. In contrast, when Ola shut down Taxiforsure, a fellow radio-cab brand, there was hardly a whimper. The point is that while ecommerce players have spent vast amounts on market- ing their brands and customer acquisition initiatives, the rela- tionship is largely based on discounts and offers. KV Sridhar, founder and chief creative offi- cer at Hyper Collective notes that in India none of the e-commerce brands, save the ones right at the top, have managed to create a unique identity. “When your sales depend on the extent of discount you can give, customers are not really being loy- al to you. Most of these brands have built their base on discounts rather than creating an emo- tional value for cus- tomers,” he said. Consequently, as long as consumers are seeking only discounts, they will not be bothered by a possible dilution of the two brands. Flipkart Fashion currently holds around 35 per cent of the total online fashion market in India. Together the three e- commerce fashion portals account for almost 60 per cent of online market share. The online fashion market in India, which currently stands at around $4 billion (~260 bil- lion), is estimated to touch $15 billion (~975 billion) in five years. The fashion market in India is currently estimated at $70 billion, of which only 25 per cent is organised. All three players have have crafted their identities on the basis of fashion styles, private labels and brands on their por- tals while working within care- fully selected price ranges. But experts point out, this is com- mon strategy, not unique to any one marketplace and if the sin- gle entity that emerges at the end of the reshuffle is able to plot a similar brand-customer- price relationship, it could keep customers in the Flipkart net. Among the key attributes that online brands bring to the table is the vast amount of cus- tomer data at their disposal. This helps them map customer behaviour and brand prefer- ences and maximise their returns from their relation- ships with both. The new enti- ty would have access to the combined data from the three marketplaces and could poten- tially gain their favour by sharply targeting their prod- ucts and price offers. “I think it makes total sense that Jabong and Myntra get integrated into Flipkart Fashion because finally, Flipkart's sin- gular motivation is its battle with Amazon. And consolida- tion seems to be an essential strategy,” says Zubin Sarkari, founder, Glamrs, a curated fashion content platform. There is another angle that Flipkart Fashion or the emerg- ing new entity would need to look at say experts, and that is organising the brand around the rapidly grow- ing army of private labels that have gathered under the Myntra-Jabong umbrella. The idea is to offer products at price points that don’t com- pete with established brands but offer consis- tent quality. In other words, the platform identity is synonymous with that of the products it sells. Myntra and Jabong have a customer overlap of almost 28 per cent. Myntra has always focused on the mass pre- mium fashion segment where it has emerged as the leader, while Jabong focuses on luxury brands, global labels and the premium fashion segment. According to a market report that Myntra released in March this year, e-com- merce is a key channel for fashion and the online fashion market is projected to grow 3.5X from $4 billion to reach $14 billion by 2020. There are fears that Flipkart may lose out on the potential surge if it loses its grip on the brands that have helped build the market. The threat of Amazon Fashion eating into its share also looms large. But these fears may be overrated. “The Indian consumer is not inordinately loyal to Myntra or Jabong, or any other e-com- merce player for that matter. So brand erosion is not a wor- ry,” says Sarkari. He advocates consolidation, which would widen the overall footprint, enhancing the product/brand mix, and offer consumers everything they could possi- bly want, he added. Fashioning Flipkart’s new fashion play As Flipkart rethinks the future of its marketplace brands Jabong and Myntra, the e-commerce giant runs the risk of losing a loyal customer base | Myntra was launched in 2007 as a gift personalisation platform, moved to a fashion marketplace model in 2011 | Jabong launched in 2012, it splashed heavily on advertising right from the year of its launch, while Myntra took four years before it released its first television campaign | Myntra was acquired by Flipkart in 2014, in 2016 Jabong was acquired by Myntra-Flipkart BRAND TRAIL Alia Bhatt (above) has been recently signed as brand ambassador for Flipkart Fashion ACROSS 7 Belief in necessity of delivering mail fast (8) 9 Fanciful Lauren out of place (6) 10 Alternately, soap suds work (4) 11 Caddy I sent badly organised (10) 12 On one’s best behaviour, as is appropriate (6) 14 Bring about an involvement between Rene and Inge (8) 15 It’s like this when you look inside someone (6) 16 In return, the fool let the agent go through the documents (6) 19 He has job to keep afloat (8) 21 German music conductor, we're told (6) 23 Men tearing about and getting back (10) 24 Either way, it’s a warning sound (4) 25 A guy left in bed must be watched (6) 26 Said fearlessly there was a section missing from the wheel (5,3) DOWN 1 Dispositions to moderate (6) 2 Fishes with touches of colour, perhaps (4) 3 Is Freud’s code cracked? (8) 4 In the course of the French telephone call (6) 5 Tina Turner embraced by country relative (5-5) 6 Report of a death in the stop press? (4,4) 8 U met here for the dance, perhaps (6) 13 Person made mistakes during these stylish footslogging progresses (10) 15 A couple allowed to come in hand? (8) 17 This will do the work of a washer — O, but nail it (8) 18 ... ‘except when peacekeepers are on the French ship' (6) 20 Byron’s end covered in gloomy elegy (6) 22 Going to be a follower of genes, is this (6) 24 Good starting points for a drive (4) > BS SUDOKU # 2626 SOLUTION TO #3206 SOLUTION TO #2625 Very easy: Solution tomorrow HOW TO PLAY Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9 Max/min temperatures in O C NATIONAL Ahmedabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 33/17 Aizawl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 23/09 Bengaluru . . . . .Scattered Showers 27/17 Bhopal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 29/14 Bhubaneswar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 30/17 Chandigarh . . . . . . . . . .Partly cloudy 26/12 Chennai . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mostly cloudy 29/25 Delhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fog 27/12 Guwahati . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 27/16 Hyderabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 31/17 Imphal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 25/09 Indore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 30/14 Kochi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Thunderstorm 33/24 Kolkata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 29/18 Lucknow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 28/14 Mangalore . . . . . . . . . . .Partly cloudy 34/24 Mumbai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 34/23 Pune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 31/16 Srinagar . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Partly cloudy 16/02 Surat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sunny 36/21 Thiru’puram . . . . . . . . . .Thunderstorm 32/25 > WEATHER TODAY’S FORECAST > THE BS CROSSWORD # 3207 TENDER CARE Commercial Feature NSIC celebrated Constitution Day N SIC celebrated Constitution Day at NSIC Corporate Office, New Delhi. To commemorate the program, Sudhir Garg, CMD, NSIC read the Preamble to the Constitution with all the NSIC employees. Also present on this occasion were Directors on Board NSIC, P. Udayakumar, Director (P&M), NSIC and A.K.Mittal, Director (Finance), NSIC. CSR initiatives, Guwahati-Siliguri Pipeline (Eastern Region Pipelines) of Indian Oil Corporation A s part of its ongoing CSR initiatives, Guwahati-Siliguri Pipeline (Eastern Region Pipelines) of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), in association with ALIMCO, distributed aids & assistive devices to approx. 130 differently-abled beneficiaries residing in/around Barpeta District (Assam) under the CSR initia- tive of IOCL on 27.11.2018. This CSR initiative will help the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) to over- come the diffi- culties posed by their disability, thereby enabling them to lead a normal & productive life and making them fully inde- pendent. Mr.Tejbir Singh Bhandar, DGM(CSR), ERPL Kolkata alongwith Mr. Vikas Gianchandani, DGM(HR), GSPL Guwahati distributed Assistive Aids and Assistive Devices to the differently-abled beneficiaries of Barpeta District (Assam), under the CSR initiative of GSPL (ERPL) in asso- ciation with ALIMCO at Barpeta, Assam on 27.11.2018. Officials from district administration were also present. Wheel Chairs, Tricycle Smart Cane, Crutch Elbow etc., were distributed in the ceremony to the benefi- ciaries, mostly belonging to the poorer section of society and predomi- nantly under privileged. 222 donates blood in a camp organized by Canara Bank to celebrate 113th founder’s day I n a unique initiative taken by Gujrat Region of Canara Bank, 171 staff members and 51 customers of the bank donated blood in blood donation camp organ- ized on 19.11.2018, simultaneously at Ahmedabad, Surat & Rajokt. Sri C N Rao, DGM inaugurated the program at Ahmedabad to celebrate 113th Founders Day of Canara Bank, in presence of Chief Guest Sri Arun Pandya, Municipal Secretary of AMC. Indian Red Cross Society provided the nec- essary Support. Sri C N Rao thanked the customers and staff members of the bank for their contribution to the good cause and Indian Red Cross Society for facilitating the camp.The program was a grand success. BOB celebrates Sports Day T he annual sports day was organized by the Bank of Baroda, Rajkot area. Chief Guest of the program, Deputy General Manager and Regional Head Mr. R.N. Ringasiya And deputy regional head are Jagjit Kumar. On this occasion, the women especially Rangoli and took part in a minute games.As the main attraction of the sport of cricket, tug-of-war, was Carrom and chess competition. Rajkot Royals team won the compe- tition for the title match. Participated enthusiastically throughout the day ujavanima staff of the bank. IMC News I MC jointly with the Netherlands Consulate General in Mumbai organ- ised a seminar on ‘Port Forum on Dockyard Redevelopment and Digital technology in Ports’ . Present in the event Mr.Ashish Vaid,VP IMC, Mr.Ajit Mangrulkar DG IMC, Mr. Guido Tielman, Consul General, Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mr. Neeraj Bansal (IRS), Deputy Chairman, JNPT, Mr.Yashodhan Wanage and Mr. Mark Fernandes, Chairman Shipping Committee IMC. Dr. Alka Mittal takes charge as Director (HR), ONGC D r Alka Mittal has joined as Director (HR) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited today. A post graduate in Economics, MBA (HRM) and Doctorate in Commerce and Business Studies, she joined ONGC as a Graduate Trainee in 1985 and brings with her an extremely rich experience span- ning over three decades. She is on the Board of ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Limited (OMPL) as ONGC nominee Director since August 2015. Prior to joining as Director (HR), Dr Mittal held the post of Chief Skill Development (CSD) of the Company. In her capacity as CSD she streamlined the activities and brought in uniformity in the working of the Skill Development Centres promoted or supported by ONGC. During this period, she has also imple- mented Apprenticeship Training scheme in ONGC engaging more than 5000 apprentices across all work centres. Previously she worked as Head CSR, at Corporate Office and took up major CSR projects across India.