Jabong has been losing market share to Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, e-tailers who have seen demand for apparel and accessories rise sharply.
By Sunny Sen
Jabong, part of Rocket Internet’s Global Fashion Group (GFG) portfolio of 10 odd companies, which together reported revenues of $901.61 million in H12015, fared relatively poorly. Apart from the Indian outfit,all the others posted gross profits. Moreover, Jabong’s revenues grew at the slowest pace of 26.5% y-o-y in the six months to June. The online fashion retailer has been in the news after co-founders Praveen Sinha and Arun Chandra Mohan exited and Nils Chrestin, chief financial officer at GFG was brought in to act as the interim CEO.
Chrestin was spearheading the restructuring and hiring process. In late October Sanjeev Mohanty was named the new CEO. Jabong has been losing market share to Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, e-tailers who have seen demand for apparel and accessories rise sharply. Market watchers attribute the growth in business of Jabong’s rivals to heavy discounts. Following Jabong’s poor performance it was reported that GFG was looking to sell the business; Jabong posted sales of Rs 811.4 crore and a loss of Rs 454 crore in the year ended December 2014.