Myntra's 3-day online fashion gig: Exclusive premium products, no discount!

Myntra looking at fashion route to sell full-priced premium items

Myntra, fashion retailing arm of India's largest e-commerce portal, Flipkart, is hoping an online fashion event would lure premium buyers without offering discounts, as it eyes profitability this financial year.

A three-day Big Fashion Gig, to run on its app, is to offer exclusive products of designers and Bollywood celebrities, beside international brands. Myntra looks to bring this twice a year, with at least a dozen movie and sports celebrities, and introduction of exclusive collections.

"This will be our first real move to shift away from discounting and offer something very different. We are focusing on experiences and exclusivity, as opposed to discounts. Our target is Rs 100 crore over three days," said Ananth Narayanan, chief executive of Myntra & Jabong, in a phone interview. This would be three times the average sale done by the shopping portal.

Myntra, which has most of its users shop on its smartphone app, sees consumers spend an average of Rs 1,800 each time. In the case of people buying premium brands such as Dorothy Perkins, Next, Aeropostale, Forever 21 Men, Clinique or Bobbi Brown, the platform has seen higher sales.

Through this event, between Saturday and Monday, Myntra customers will get access to 35 new brands, 25 being international. Designed in line with the flash sale models followed by global e-commerce giants or smartphone brands, Myntra aims to add 100,000 customers.

"We are very excited. The purpose is to bring together people from the fashion world -- bloggers, celebrities and customers who are interested in fashion," added Narayanan. The collections would later be included for users of Jabong, the company Narayanan turned around after Myntra bought it in a fire sale from Rocket Internet.

Myntra plans to create different value propositions for customers, via brand launches, exclusive lines or celebrity gigs. The event will also see auctions of some celebrity designwear.

"With most of the celebrities, we have some sort of relationship already. Overall, our goal is profitability. Even with the marketing cost, it will be a profitable event for us," said Narayanan.