The road ahead

Though Jabong’s acquisition has made Myntra the largest online fashion retailer, Myntra does think it as a consolidation in the traditional sense of consolidation.

“I intend to run Myntra and Jabong as separate entities,” Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan told in an interview with ET.

The deal has been done with the prime objective of ‘synergise and work on positives of Jabong’. Not only did Narayanan mention, but Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal also stressed about the intention with the new team in the video conference held on Tuesday afternoon.

He also fielded questions addressing issues from possible mergers, employee retrenchment and a few on special discounts that Myntra employees could get on Jabong wares.

While Flipkart, Myntra and Jabong now own 70 percent of the e-commerce market share currently, Myntra knows what are Jabong’s strength they should be focusing on.

“Jabong has very strong Indian and international brands. Wherever there are possibilities to leverage each other, we will. It is very strong in women and in international brands. Myntra has great strength in private brands and I think we can leverage these,” Narayanan told media.

He also added, “I think geographically, my sense is Jabong is probably stronger in the NCR region and that is something we can leverage.”

Some of the most iconic global brands that will now be exclusive across platforms include Forever 21, Lacoste, Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, Tom Tailor, G Raw Star, Bugatti Shoes, The North Face, Swarovski, and Timberland.

While everyone looks at this acquisition as a big win in the battle against the likes of Amazon and Alibaba, Narayanan says it’s not about others but the customers.

“Across the group, we are fairly dominant in the online fashion space among Flipkart, Myntra and Jabong. What we can offer to consumers better through this. Now we can offer more choice, more variety and continued fabulous consumer experience,” added Narayanan.