Jabong to introduce private labels

Mumbai: Online fashion retailer Jabong.com is planning to launch private label brands in the next 4-5 months, a top company official said.

"We are setting up a full fledged design team in London because we also want to create our own brands that provide good, fast, western fashion to the Indian consumers. We are in the final stages of setting up a top end design studio in London. "It will be a team of the best fashion companies in the world that are going to be focusing only on creating the design. There is an immense opportunity to develop our own brands," Jabong.com founder and chief executive officer Arun Chandra Mohan said.

"We will probably come up with two-three brands in the next 4-5 months," he said. The company sells over 1,500 brands like Adidas, Puma, Levi's, Converse, Proline, Nike among others. It also has apparels from leading fashion designers. About 55-60 per cent of the company's revenue comes from tier II and III cities. There are not enough malls in the smaller cities, which makes it conducive for people to shop online, he said. "We are growing at 10-15 per cent month on month. We are doing sales of about USD 30 million a month," he said.

The e-commerce industry is growing at a phenomenal rate and the best is yet to come, Mohan said. "The e-commerce industry right now is at an inflection point. I think it is what China was may be three-four years ago. The industry is going through a catastrophical growth. People are getting comfortable buying online. The best is yet to come," he said.

Mohan said mobile commerce (M-commerce) would drive the growth of the e-commerce industry. "The internet penetration is increasing exponentially. New users are increasing significantly. Almost 50 per cent of the people accessing internet is through mobiles. So even in Jabong, we have invested heavily on mobile app. "Close to 30 per cent of our revenue is coming from mobile. Penetration is increasing and existing users are coming back very strongly. M-commerce will drive the e-commerce growth going forward and right now it is a very strong enabler," he said.

Traditionally, e-commerce players have relied on discounts to lure customers and he said in the medium term the coupon rates would come down. "People expect it to be cheaper on the internet and that is the value proposition of the internet. I think the current coupon rate is high and it will come down in the medium term. The industry is on a growth mode right now and it all about getting the customers comfortable," he said.