Myntra to leverage on private brands to combat offline rivals

App-based fashion store Myntra is looking at means to take on physical stores. The Flipkart subsidiary is looking towards its in-house brands to ramp up its sales. Myntra’s leading brand Roadster has already helped rake in nearly Rs. 320 crores. The brand is targeting to hit Rs. 650 crores towards the end of 2016, says a company executive.

Myntra is looking at ending 2015 with a GMV of $ 550 million. Having its own brands is a sign that Myntra is directly challenging the conventional brands that have physical stores. CEO Ananth Narayanan says that the company’s private brands (including Dressberry, HRX and All About You) will take the sales figure upto Rs. 2,000 crores by the end of 2016.

Private brands battle it out online and offline

Experts agree that creating private brands is one of the best ways to keep the sales up.

Kabir Lumba, MD of Lifestyle International says, “Melange is our largest brand (Rs 140 crore) followed by Code at over Rs 100 crore. Private labels have become a key and constant part of revenue generation for us.”

The numbers do not lie! Bare and Indigo Nation, the in-house brands of Future Group bring in nearly Rs. 400 crores and Rs. 200 crores respectively. Shoppers Stop MD Govind Shrikhande maintains that the company’s brands like Stop and Life (which currently contributes 17% of the company’s income) will be adding 20% to the company by 2017.

Keeping things private

Myntra will continue to have majority of its brands in house. This will help protect the company from third party merchants who have their own interests in mind, and may not always be willing to share Myntra’s ideas in the discounting game.

“Each private brand helps us to create a different and unique identity in the consumer’s mind. We will be expanding the product portfolio among the 12 private labels with a larger push on women-centric fashion products,” says Abhishek Verma, head of Myntra Fashion.

Perhaps other fashion etailers ought to take pointers from Myntra. Jabong, for instance does not have any private brands; a fact that is reflecting in the not-so healthy status of the company.