Aditya Birla has launched an online fashion portal called abof.com that lists clothing and accessories for men and women, both from Aditya Birla’s brands as well as curated clothing from other brands. With this initiative, the company will essentially start aggregating brands and merchants that are not sold under its fashion umbrella. However, it's not clear which merchants and brands abof will tie up with. Interestingly, Aditya Birla claims to have build abof as a mobile first initiative, and while the website works pretty well on a phone, the platform does not yet have an app. Additionally, the abof website on the desktop feels a bit unpolished in its navigation and UI, especially compared to its other website TrendIN (or competitors like Jabong). However, this is still better than its competitors like Myntra, that don’t even have a website store, preferring to sell app only. Abof also claims to come with a 3D virtual trial room, where customers can view clothes draped on pre-entered body proportions as well as a ‘style quiz’ to show each customer only personalized relevant content. However we could not find these features. Note that Aditya Birla already offers a fashion ecommerce store by the name TrendIN.com which it launched back in 2013. This store sells products it already sells offline through Pantaloons and Madura Fashion, which has its own website, but does not sell online. Offline, Madura sells inventories of brands like Peter England, Van Heusen, Louis Philippe and Allen Solly. Other developments in online fashion: - In August,…
