Amazon Fashion India has made it to the four largest businesses for Amazon Fashion worldwide, along with the US, Europe and Japan. The milestone has been achieved in five years since Fashion as a category was launched on the Amazon India marketplace, said Arun Sirdeshmukh, Business Head of Amazon Fashion India.
“We exited 2017 as the single largest fashion destination to become the fastest growing online fashion marketplace in the country,” Sirdeshmukh told BusinessLine . “Through 2018 till now — with indicators such as site traffic, business with brands, new customer acquisitions and third party traffic monitoring sources — Amazon Fashion continues to be the single largest fashion destination and the fastest growing online fashion marketplace in the country. We have grown to become one of the top four largest businesses of Amazon Fashion worldwide.”
More importantly, fashion has surpassed mobile phones and electronics to become the single largest category for new customer acquisitions for Amazon. In its upcoming Wardrobe Refresh Sale from June 19 to 23, the e-tailer, which normally does not share numbers, expects to acquire 5 lakh new customers.
The sale will throw open an inventory of 84 million units in over 3 lakh styles from 1,200-plus brands with early access for Prime members. Amazon will also offer specialised sales such as for plus size clothing and premium watches. It has introduced an Alexa search on the app, allowing shoppers to ask about fashion trends and seek style tips. Fashion sales on Amazon are driven largely by apparel and footwear.
Private label push
The e-tailer has beefed up its private label fashion portfolio from 23 last festival season to 55 now, including two new launches last month – Tavasya, an ethnic wear brand for women and Jam & Honey, a kidswear brand.
“We have two parts to our private label strategy. We have six Amazon-owned brands including Symbol, Myx, Arthur Harvey, House & Shields, Tavasya, Jam & Honey. The rest are ‘Made for Amazon’ brands by third party players, where we help them structure the concept and they do the rest,” said Sirdeshmukh.
Diverse, Centrino, Styleville.in, Burwood, Camelio, Fusefit, Aalia, Elaisha, Womanista, AKA Chic, Endeavor and Nayak are some of the ‘Made for Amazon’ brands. On whether Shoppers Stop, in which Amazon has a 5 per cent stake, had relisted the selection which was removed to comply with the new e-commerce FDI rules, he said that will happen by the month-end.
Asked about the quantum of losses incurred by Amazon since the new rules became effective from February 1, he said: “We were always compliant with the laws of the land, even before that (new FDI rules). We did see a very small, transient impact on the business, but only in February; after that, it was business as usual.”