Continuing with its aggressive pace of expansion in India, Amazon has today announced the appointment of Arun Sirdeshmukh, co-founder of Fashionara to head its fashion portfolio. After consumer electronics, fashion and accessories is the biggest category for eCommerce firms in India. The US giant runs Amazon Fashion, while Flipkart leads the domain with its Myntra acquisition.
Earlier, Vikas Purohit was heading this crucial portfolio for Amazon. However, the position has been vacant since Vikas quit in September 2015. Saideman led the fashion category in the interim period. Reportedly, Arun joined the eCommerce company on Tuesday.
Arun’s startup Fashionara was shut down a few weeks ago because of its struggle to keep up. It is believed that the funding crunch is also responsible for the closure of the fashion portal.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and working on his own startup, Arun Sirdeshmukh was at Reliance Trends. There he was leading the firm as CEO, which is a fashion and lifestyle business of Reliance Retail.
In the first quarter of 2016, unit sales of fashion products soared 200 per cent over that in the previous year. Amazon’s fashion and lifestyle selection grew three times over the past six months. It is now offering 15,000 local and global brands, with more than two million products.
The eCommerce giant seems to be all set to compete against home grown eCommerce startups – Flipkart and Snapdeal. While startups are currently struggling to raise further funding rounds, Bezos recently announced to pour in additional $3 billion in Amazon’s India operations.
While Amazon has been winning the war at hand, Flipkart is trying hard to increase its revenues. It recently introduced new policies like No Cost EMI’s and 10-day replacement policy — instead of 30 days.
Flipkart’s valuation has dropped significantly after a series of valuation markdown by investors. On the other hand, Amazon is all in for the battle to conquer the Indian market. It is the only developing market that Amazon has full control on, after losing its grip to Alibaba in China.
