Almost three years back, the designers Sidharth Arora and Astha Sethi closed their boutique located at Hauz Khas in New Delhi. The boutique sold the apparel label Aumbre. Commenting on the same, Sethi stated that having a physical store will convert the designer into a store manager. She shifted her business online and it has now witnessed a ten-fold increase in the sales.
These budding designers are not the only ones who prefer online stores. Even the online companies including Myntra, Amazon, Indianroots, Snapdeal and FashionAndYou have tied up with over 150 designers who struggle to sell their exclusive lines. This transition is in practice since a few months.
The online marketplace, Amazon India opened a designer store before the festive sales in order to divert the traffic from the individual websites. It also roped in around 20 designers to its platform. On the other hand, Myntra is in plans to expand its design store portfolio. The Flipkart owned fashion portal is in plans to provide incubation programs to expand its design store portfolio. Myntra is also training the aspiring designers to design exclusively for the online shoppers.
Even Snapdeal has products from around 40 designers comprising of the popular names in the industry including Manish Arora, Malini Ramani and Nida Mahmood.
As per the CEO of FashionAndYou, Aasheesh Mendiratta, the designers can largely focus on their labels rather than working under other designers. The website has roped in over 20 designers. One third of the designers exist on the e-commerce platform.
Of the top product categories, the fashion sales contribute to the fattest margins for the online companies. The designers including Sougat Paul, who has designed for many fashion shows in the country gets only 10 percent of the overall sales for his label from his store. Interestingly, most demand for the designer wear is from the youngsters residing in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, claimed Rahul Narvekar, the CEO of Indianroots.
The low price can be an issue to the designers when it comes to online stores. The designers have to give huge discounts and face the menace of high returns.
