After launching a digital accessories private label DigiFlip in July 2012, Flipkart has now launched a lifestyle private label called ‘Flippd‘, reports The Economic Times.
Through this brand, Flipkart will be initially offering men’s apparel and footwear with plans to offer women’s apparel, sunglasses and watches by the end of this quarter. When we checked, Flipkart was offering Men’s T-shirts and footwear products like shoes, slippers and flip-flops through this label. It claims to currently offer more than 100 styles across clothing and footwear categories.
In an email to Medianama, Flipkart’s Ankit Nagori is quoted as saying that Flippd will allow them to address price point gaps in the current portfolio in its marketplace and also formulate a quicker go-to market for newer designs.
This is probably one of the key launches for Flipkart which closed a massive $360 million round in October 2013, with the company CEO Sachin Bansal saying that fashion category was going to be a key focus for the company going forward, since private labels provide better margins than branded products which will eventually result in better profitability.
Remember that Flipkart had reported increased loss of Rs 281.7 crore for the year ended March 2013, which was significantly up from Rs 109.9 crore loss in the previous year. This was despite a five fold increase in revenue to more than Rs 1,180 crore for FY13 from Rs 204.8 crore revenue in FY12.
Do Online Private Labels Work?
While private labels does provide better margins for e-commerce companies and might find favor among price sensitive consumers due to its competitive pricing, it needs to be seen if Flipkart will witness the same adoption for Flippd as it does for other branded goods on its portal. We are awaiting Flipkart’s response on how has DigiFlip performed for the company since its launch.
Flipkart’s competitor Myntra which has two private labels – Roadster and Dressberry seems to have received decent adoption with Myntra CEO Mukesh Bansal saying in an interview to TechCircle that private labels contribute for 15% of Myntra’s total revenues as of September 2013 and is growing on a quarterly basis. Update: Myntra has informed that it has seven private labels which include Roadster, Dressberry, Mast & Harbour, Anouk, SherSingh, Kook n Keech and ETC. Besides this, there is also Hrithik Roshan’s casual wear brand which is manufactured and sold exclusively on Myntra.com.
On the other hand however, several online private labels have failed – SherSingh and its parent company Exclusively.in were acquired by Myntra in November 2012, following which all SherSingh products were integrated to Myntra’s website. Another online private label Zovi had merged with Inkfruit in February 2013.
Other private labels include Smile Interactive’s Freecultr, Yepme and Ant Farm’s* Stylista among others.
New Jewellery Section
As indicated by the report, Flipkart has also introduced a new jewellery section which offers products like bangles, necklaces, earrings, rings and pendants among others from brands like Caratlane.com, Bluestone, Juvalia & You, Sri Jagadamba and others. Bansal has told the publication they will also start retailing large-sized goods like furniture, large appliances and electronics products among others sometime this year.
*Disclosure: Ant Farm is an advertiser with Medianama
