Flipkart has officially acquired Jabong to strengthen its position in the fashion and lifestyle segment. With Aditya Birla Group, Snapdeal all in line to scoop up Jabong, Flipkart's Myntra finally completed the deal but financial details haven't been disclosed yet.
Myntra was acquired earlier by Flipkart for around Rs. 2000 crore, which at the time was one of the biggest e-commerce deals in the country. Although after acquiring Myntra, the company tried to go with an app only strategy with Myntra as a pre-cursor to implementing it for their own site but it backfired with Myntra losing significant marketshare within a few months. The company brought Myntra back to the desktop after seeing the folly in its strategy.
Jabong too has been struggling to remain relevant, but has consolidated its losses over the last two years. Although the outlook is bleak on the ecommerce space in India, Flipkart's move to get more users from another ailing service may help it get some respite. What we are now seeing is a consolidation on every front with several rivals joining hands to sail safely through the storm.
Once considered the unicorn of Indian startup space, Flipkart's strategies allowed for Amazon and PayTM to make inroads into every domain from electronics, smartphones and fashion. But this seems like a sound move from the company atleast for the foreseeable future.
