The Aditya Birla Group is gearing up to join the online fashion world. The legacy company has announced the launch of an exclusive fashion website, abof.com. The online store will be launched in the next thirty days, and will be monitored by Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla group himself.
Taking on existing online fashion marketplaces
The Aditya Birla group is planning to compete with the big names that are ruling the virtual fashion space like Jabong and Myntra. The project will be launched in ten cities to begin with. Noted brands like Vero Moda, NINETEEN, ONLY, and United Colours of Benetton will be featured in abof.com. There are plans to rope in foreign labels as well.
Tapping the potential of online fashion
The Aditya Birla group owns Pantaloons, which has private fashion labels like Bare Denim, Lombard, Rig, Annabelle, to name a few. The group also owns Madura Fashion and Lifestyles Ltd. Madura runs a retailing website Trendin, which sells labels like Allen Solly and Peter England.
The group also bought a stake in women’s fashion retailer Creative Lifestyles Pvt Ltd. last year. Creative Lifestyles currently sells through its physical stores and online marketplaces.
“The company plans to be far more exclusive than a Jabong or a Myntra by focusing on the top 100 labels and brands. They will focus more on the curated options and sell products driven by content and suggestive buying,” said an unnamed Aditya Birla official.
The booming growth of online fashion seems to be drawing the Aditya Birla group.
Harish H.V., partner at consultancy firm Grant Thornton India feels, “Fashion is one category online that is getting heated up as firms are seeing strong repeat buying. People are slowly getting accustomed to buying online,” he said, “Also, as large groups eye valuation and scale of the Flipkarts and Snapdeals of the world, competition is bound to rise.”
With the mushrooming of online stores, one would hope that the playground is big enough for everyone to share and play. This is definitely a time for online sellers and buyers to make the most of the situation.
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