Bollywood enters e-commerce space with private labels

E-commerce in India has a strong Bollywood flavour now. Hrithik Roshan, Malaika Arora Khan, Bipasha Basu are among the new names that have entered the e-commerce business with their private clothing labels. And more celebrities are expected to join in.

Hrithik Roshan has tied up with fashion portal Myntra to launch his own private label- HRX. Arora Khan and Basu have joined hands with Mumbai based e-commerce venture called Labelcorp.

Earlier in November 2012, Labelcorp had also launched the home-decor brand with Suzanne Roshan.

"Celebrities work with us as tastemakers. They help us take guided choice in styling and work as taste-makers," said Preeta Sukhantar, CEO, Label Corp. The company could join hands with chefs, writers too depending on the categories. "You could also see more Bollywood style icons venturing into e-commerce."

"We share royalties with Hrithik for the brand inspired by him. He gives us the creative inputs about how the brand should be," said Mukesh Bansal, CEO, Myntra.com.

The celebrities, while serving as style consultants, also have minority stakes in the brands concerned.

"We target any woman who watches Bollywood movies and wants to wear exclusively styled clothes. Our prices start from Rs 250 up to thousands and you will find high street fashion clothing at affordable prices," said Sukhantar from Label-corp.

But it's not just the celebrity brands that can boast of high fashion quotient and exclusive styles online. Koovs.com that ventured into selling high street fashion clothing online in February 2013 has a team of about 12 designers based in London. "About 50 per cent of our products are under our private label-Koovs," said Anant Nahata, CEO of Koovs.com. The website also sells clothes from brands like Newlook and Glamorous from UK.

Flipkart also launched its private label-Flippd - for apparel and lifestyle in January. Websites like Yebhi.com too have their own private labels.

Bollywood's engagement with e-commerce had begun with Yatra- a travel portal -when it roped in Salman Khan as brand ambassador last year. "Travel industry is a competitive space and there is a trust deficit because of so many players. He helps us to fill that gap," Dhruv Shringi, CEO & Co-founder, Yatra, had said.