Flipkart puts focus back on private labels, launches in-house sports brand

Adrenex will have sports gear, gym accessories and fitness products

Flipkart on Wednesday announced the launch of a new private-label brand Adrenex, adding to its growing portfolio of in-house brands in electronics, fashion and furniture, as the Walmart-owned ecommerce major targets higher margins and differentiated product offerings to take on rivals.

A private label is a brand which is designed, produced and marketed in-house.

Under Adrenex, which is a sports and fitness brand, Flipkart is selling cricket and tennis gear like rackets and bats, footballs, volleyballs, and gym accessories like yoga mats, waters zippers, clinchers and dumbbells, among other things. Treadmills, cycles and a range of home gym equipment will be added later. The brand has over 220 products currently.

According to Flipkart, the sports good industry currently stands at $3.3 billion and is seen growing to $5.6 billion, in market size, by 2023. The company said, it had launched a small set of products under Adrenex during the Big Billion Days sale event in October 2018, and the brand has grown three-times since then. 

“The aim of Flipkart’s Private Brands has always been to solve for our customers’ unique needs across categories, by providing them with the best quality at affordable prices,” said Adarsh Menon, a vice president at Flipkart, who heads private-labels, electronics and furniture verticals. 

“By launching Adrenex, we are looking to better serve Indians who are becoming increasingly health and fitness conscious, but may not have access to good quality equipment. Going forward, we will be adding more products to our catalogue, with the goal of serving every sports and fitness need that a customer might have,” said Menon, a sales veteran who served at Hindustan Unilever for 11 years before joining Flipkart in 2015.

Adrenex is the latest addition to Flipkart growing list of private labels. Flipkart got onto the private label bandwagon in 2017 with the launch of MarQ (large appliances), Smart Buy (consumer electronics) and Billion, a brand for smartphones and the pet project of now-departed co-founder Sachin Bansal. While Billion was repositioned to focus on personal care and home utilities, the company launched several new brands in 2018, namely, Perfect Homes (furniture), Cara Mia and Ann Springs (women fashion and accessories), and Miss & Chef (kids clothing and toys).

According to sources, private label sales fetch the company around Rs 500 crore in calendar year 2018.

With the maturity of the segment, several other ecommerce firms such as BigBasket and Lenskart are also pushing their in-house brands for the sheer reason that those offers better margins, and better control over quality and production. 

While BigBasket and Grofers, two-leading grocery e-tailers, have launched private labels in categories from staples to personal care to kitchen supplies, fashion retailer Voonik recently pivoted to focus only on private labels. Eyewear e-commerce major Lenskart is also investing heavily to grow its in-house brands John Jacobs and Vincent Chase. 

Global giant Amazon, for many years, has been scaling its popular in-house label Amazon Basics, which covers a range of electronic accessories, home utilities among others. Kindle, and e-book reader, Alexa range of speakers, and clothing line Symbol, are some other private label offerings by the Seattle headquartered company.