admin
July 16, 2025
Prabhanu Kumar Das, Medianama
16 July 2025
E-commerce logistics platform Shiprocket announced the launch of Shunya.ai, a sovereign AI model developed in India to support the country’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), on July 11. The company claims that it is India’s first multimodal AI stack, built in partnership with US-based Ultrasafe Inc.
This announcement comes at the heels of Shiprocket filing a confidential draft red herring prospectus (DHRP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in May 2025 for their Initial Public Offering (IPO). The company is expected to raise around Rs 2500 crore in its IPO.
What does the AI model offer?
As per Shiprocket’s website, Shunya.ai is built on a freemium model, with unlimited access priced at Rs 499 a month for MSMEs. It is directly integrated into the Shiprocket platform and offers AI agents across multiple languages. According to the company, the agents can perform the following tasks:
Shiprocket CEO Saahil Goel stated, “We’ve adapted Shunya.ai from the ground up for Indian languages, commerce workflows, and MSME needs. By embedding it directly into our platform, we’re giving over 1,50,000 sellers instant access to tools that are intelligent, local, and scalable, levelling the playing field for businesses across Bharat.” Notably, Larsen and Toubro’s AI cloud arm, Cloudfiniti is reportedly providing the underlying GPU infrastructure, ensuring that all data processing and storage remains within India.
This AI model does offer multiple benefits but it will not level the playing field against big players, as per Devangshu Dutta who is the founder of specialist consulting firm, Third Eyesight.
“While Shunya AI can help small businesses compete better, it won’t completely level the playing field. Large companies still have greater organisational capacity and capability to respond to the insights offered, including more data and bigger budgets. The real benefit for small businesses is improving how they work and serve customers within their current markets, rather than suddenly competing with giants,” Dutta said.
The E-Commerce AI Pivot
This is not the first time that an Indian e-commerce platform has unveiled a B2B AI service through its existing platform. Zepto recently launched Zepto Atom in May 2025, a real-time tool that offers consumer brands available on the platform minute-level updates, PIN-code level performance maps, and Zepto GPT, a Natural Language Processing (NLP) assistant trained on internal data that brands can query about their stock keeping units (SKUs) and performance data.
Zomato and its e-commerce arm Blinkit have also been growing their AI capabilities. Analytics India Magazine previously reported that the company’s generative AI team has grown from 3 to 20 engineers in the time-span of a year. Zomato introduced a personalised AI food assistant for users, and also uses AI in its backend to optimise delivery times and improve consumer support. Blinkit also released the Recipe Rover AI in May 2023, an AI assistant for recipes.
Other companies like Swiggy with ‘What to Eat’ AI, Myntra’s MyFashionGPT AI shopping assistant, and Amazon’s Rufus have also adopted AI assistants on their platform as a tool for the consumer.
The issue of merchant stickiness
Dutta asserts that this shift means platforms like Zepto and Shiprocket are changing from being service providers to becoming data intelligence companies. They are generating, or are in the process of generating revenue through transactional data that flows through the company.
“While this can create better insights and automation for merchants on these platforms, it also could make the merchants more dependent on the platforms. Once a merchant builds its operations around a platform’s specific AI tools and insights, it becomes much harder to switch to a competitor – creating stronger merchant stickiness. We already see this in infrastructure and core services such as banking and financial services, enterprise cloud services, building management etc. and the same is likely to happen in AI-enabled process management”, he said.
Why this matters
As Shiprocket is preparing for an IPO, Shunya.ai becomes another means to generate revenue for the company. This app can extend Shiprocket’s reach to local physical stores and MSMEs, by offering them the opportunity to provide the same experiences and support to the consumer that larger retailers and e-commerce platforms do, while automating delivery automation, cataloguing, and customer support.
Furthermore, the launch of this model is also part of the larger trend of AI integration and automation, both within e-commerce platforms for their consumers and within the back-end for optimisation.
Competition in these sectors and merchant stickiness may also become an issue, as businesses hosted on these e-commerce services may become reliant on specific AI tools and their outputs.
Questions of data privacy are also important when it comes to service companies moving towards data intelligence: How do these AI models gather and use data? The consent of end-consumers in these B2B models, data storage, and security are all issues that need to be studied as e-commerce and retails pivots towards AI.
Some Unanswered Questions
MediaNama has reached out to Shiprocket with the following questions and will update the article when we receive a response.
(Published in Medianama)
admin
July 10, 2025
Alka Jain, Outlook Business
10 July 2025
Just when Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto were slowing down in their quick commerce game, Amazon’s entry may spur them towards a more aggressive race. The ecommerce giant has begun offering deliveries in as little as ten minutes in Delhi after Bengaluru, under the name ‘Amazon Now’.
“We are excited with the initial customer response and positive feedback, especially from Prime members. Based on this, we are now expanding the service over the next few months addressing immediate customer needs while maintaining Amazon’s standards for safety, quality and reliability,” the company said in an official statement.
Till now, the company was moving at its own pace with the idea that Indian consumers would wait a day or two for their deliveries. But the game has changed now—convenience is king here. Online shoppers want everything from milk to mobile chargers within a few minutes at their doorsteps.
And the big three of the quick commerce market—Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto—have cracked the consumer code perfectly. This trend has nudged Amazon and Flipkart to enter the 10-minute delivery segment. It started as an experiment in the larger ecommerce sector but has now become a necessity for online retailers.
Kathryn McLay, chief executive of Walmart International—an American multinational retail corporation—revealed that quick commerce now accounts for 20% of India’s ecommerce market and is growing at a rate of 50% annually. According to a Morgan Stanley report, the market is expected to reach $57bn by 2030.
Hence, Amazon could not afford to stay on the sidelines. The company has already pumped $11bn into Indian market since 2013 and recently announced another $233mn to upgrade its infrastructure and speed up deliveries. In addition, it has also opened five fulfilment centres across the country.
Despite continued investment, there are doubts if Amazon can disrupt the quick commerce game. Industry experts state that the ecommerce major’s late entry could upend the fragile unit economics of the space. It can even reignite discount wars and increase burn rate (a company spending its cash reserve while going through loss) for the incumbents, once the ecommerce giants begin to exert pressure and begin to capture market share.
Open Market, Thin Margins
Given the growth momentum and market size, quick commerce start-up Kiko.live cofounder Alok Chawla believes that there is definitely headroom to accommodate another player in the quick commerce market. However, margins may remain negative for a couple of years due to high business and delivery costs.
As per data, the average order value of ₹350–₹400 yields a gross margin of approximately 20% but high fulfilment and delivery costs (₹50–₹60 per order) significantly reduce overall profitability, often cancelling out most of the gains.
“Indian customers will not be willing to pay high shipping charges for convenience. But the market will continue to grow due to cart subsidies and shipping discounts. On top of this, profitability also remains quite some time away,” he says.
Even a survey by Grant Thornton Bharat, a professional services firm, shows that 81% of Indian quick commerce users cite discounts and offers as one of the main reasons they shop on platforms like Blinkit and Instamart.
But the fact is Amazon has extremely deep pockets, which means, the trio will once again have to get into aggressive discounting to protect their turf, said Chawla, indicating the possibility of higher cash burn quarters ahead.
In February, reports revealed that Indian quick commerce companies, including new entrants, were burning cash to the tune of ₹1,300–₹1,500 crore on a monthly basis. But a few months later, Aadit Palicha, chief executive of Zepto, a fast-growing 10-minute delivery platform, claimed that the company had slashed its operating cash burn by 50% in the previous quarter.
Still, the path to profitability remains shaky. Though Amazon can get an advantage of its existing huge customer base that is habitual of making online purchases including those in similar categories.
The real challenge lies beneath the surface because ecommerce and quick commerce operate on fundamentally different engines.
E-Comm vs Q-Comm: A Different Game
It may seem like a simple extension of what Amazon already does: deliver products. But in practice, the logistics, timelines and cost structures behind traditional ecommerce and quick commerce are different, said Somdutta Singh, founder and chief executive of Assiduus Global, a cross-border ecommerce accelerator that helps brands scale on global marketplaces through end-to-end solutions.
She explains the difference using a hypothetical situation: let’s say you order a phone case in Mumbai, which is picked from a nearby fulfilment centre. It will be added to a pre-routed delivery run with 30-50 other stops. This batching on the basis of route optimisation, keeps last-mile costs low, somewhere around ₹40–₹80.
But if you order the same item in a smaller town like Alleppey, it may first travel mid-mile from a hub in Cochin, then be handed off to a local partner like India Post. This increases the delivery time but keeps costs manageable through scale and planned routing.
This setup suits well in ecommerce business, which is built for reach and variety, not for speed. However, quick commerce runs on a completely different playbook because speed becomes priority here.
For instance, you order a pack of chips and a cold drink via Zepto in Andheri. These items are already stocked in a dark store within one to two kilometers of your home. The moment you place the order; someone picks it off the shelf. A rider is dispatched almost immediately and heads directly to your address.
There is no mid-mile movement, no routing logic and no batching. Each trip is a solo run. Delivery often happens within 10 to 15 minutes. This kind of speed relies on a dense network of local stores and a steady flow of short-range riders. But it also means higher costs.
“With no bundling of orders and lower average cart sizes, usually ₹250 to ₹300, the delivery cost per order can shoot up to ₹60 to ₹120. That is a heavy operational burden. Unlike traditional ecommerce, where cost efficiency scales with distance and order volume, quick commerce is constrained by geography and time pressure,” she explains.
So, it becomes more than just a category expansion for e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. It marks a pivot in their “logistics thinking” and signals a broader shift in entry strategies. What once worked must now be retooled for hyperlocal and real-time operations.
Speed over Scale Not Easy
There are multiple challenges ahead for Amazon to make its presence felt and stay competitive in the quick commerce space. Firstly, it must build an operations and logistics layer that enables sub-15-minute deliveries, along with a technology stack to support it, according to Mit Desai, practice member at Praxis Global Alliance, a management consulting firm.
Second, it needs to build a dark store network to succeed in the space which is crucial to meet the 10-15 minutes delivery promise. Experts believe that a hybrid model will be the most successful in India—a mix of micro warehouses, partner stores and dark stores.
Desai states that Amazon’s existing capabilities can give it a base to build on, but it would also have to account for complexities and differences that come with the quick commerce business.
“For Amazon, the challenge will be operations. Can they build 700+ dark stores? Can they go hyperlocal? Can they navigate the chaos of Gurugram rain, Bengaluru traffic or the lanes of Dadar?” wonders Madhav Kasturia, founder and chief executive of Zippee, a quick commerce fulfilment start-up focused on hyperlocal deliveries and dark store management.
Another challenge can be repeat, loyal customers. As of now, customers check prices across platforms, and order where prices are the lowest. So, Amazon will have to spend heavily on discounts to gain market share. Chawla says retention will remain a problem because Zepto’s growth has also slowed down after a reduction in discounting burn.
However, Singh highlights that Amazon may not roll out everything in one shot. “We will likely see small-scale pilots, co-branded dark stores, local partnerships, new rider networks, tested in top cities before any nationwide push. They will also reveal whether it is viable to retrofit scale-driven e-commerce infrastructure into something that runs well in a hyperlocal loop,” she added.
Profitability Remains a Concern
While the quick commerce space is becoming increasingly dynamic with new entrants, the core question remains: is it a sustainable business model? The path to profitability is still fraught with operational complexity, margin constraints and uncertainty in consumer behaviour.
“Margins in quick commerce were never pretty to begin with,” says Kasturia. Yet he remains optimistic about the market because India’s grocery market is still largely untapped online.
As per data, India’s grocery and essentials market is over $600bn, of which online commerce is just three to four percent. Even quick commerce is sitting at ₹7,000–₹9,000 crore gross merchandise value today. So, the market isn’t crowded. It’s just early.
“We are barely scratching the surface,” he says, arguing that whoever wins customer behaviour, will lead the game. For example, in tier 1 cities, users no longer compare prices—they compare time.
For Amazon, this is both an opportunity and a constraint. Experts believe that the ecommerce giant can stand out by focusing on trust, hygiene and reliability—areas where existing players sometimes falter.
Kasturia says that the platform should not even chase everything, rather focus on profitable categories like fruits, dairy and personal care. “Build strong private labels. Nail density before geography and don’t discount blindly,” he adds.
The key is to build for reorders, not virality. That’s when customer acquisition cost (CAC) drops, margins compound and a player stops bleeding money per order. And to reduce the cost of dark stores, Chawla suggests an alternative route.
“Riding to neighbourhood stores for long-tail stock keeping unit can cut real estate and wastage costs,” he says, adding that it can decentralise inventory without owning all of it.
To follow this playbook, Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a management consulting and services firm, says that every player needs to invest hundreds of crores before the model begins to show surplus cash. It will demand multiple, interlocked shifts—in pricing strategy, tech backbone, category mix, and even brand positioning.
Amazon’s entry doesn’t merely add another contender in the 10-minute delivery race—it rewrites the playbook for every player. The real question now is: can the frontrunners hold their turf, or will Amazon’s scale and deep pockets tip the balance of power?
admin
July 1, 2025
Sankalp Phartiyal, Bloomberg
1 July 2025
Just last week, Amazon.com Inc.’s India unit announced the launch of five new fulfillment centers to speed up e-commerce deliveries across the South Asian country’s smaller towns and cities. The online shopping giant’s statement included the words fast, faster and fastest nine times. That’s because delivery speed has never mattered more in India than it does now.
Homegrown firms such as Eternal Ltd.’s Blinkit, Swiggy Ltd.’s Instamart and Zepto are now delivering everything from pricey herbal skincare to Bluetooth speakers in just 10 minutes, making Amazon’s overnight shipping look comparatively lethargic. With one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies and a swelling middle class that’s looking for instant gratification, India is growing ever more important — and demanding.
It’s no surprise that the as-yet-unprofitable Amazon India is investing another $233 million to boost its delivery network and infrastructure in the country this year. It’s already committed more than $11 billion in India, the bulk of which has gone toward building online retail from the ground up. Its upstart rivals, also in the red, are driving a behavioral shift and are quickly building up their order volumes to the point where they’ll be able to strike distribution deals with consumer brands at an Amazon-like scale. That’s the mood music I’m hearing from local investors and it’s why Amazon is actively trying to counteract these nascent fast-commerce players.
Take me as an example of changing habits. Last week, I found myself bereft of shaving supplies on the morning of a day that featured an important meeting. I ordered a razor, brush and shaving cream via Swiggy and they were with me within 10 minutes. That sort of convenience is (probably) why I neglected
to restock my bathroom cabinet in advance — I simply don’t need to spend time planning small purchases anymore.
What does this mean for Amazon? Well, beyond everyday conveniences, Amazon and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart may also lose out on higher-ticket purchases such as smartphones and other consumer electronics. Why wait in line or for days for the latest iPhone if an army of scooter riders is ready to drop it off at your doorstep almost instantly? And, specific to Amazon, how compelling will Prime delivery be if there are superior alternatives?
The Seattle-based online retailer was once driven out of China by regulations promoting domestic names, “which had deep and patient capital, and strong capabilities,” said Devangshu Dutta, head of retail consultancy firm Third Eyesight. “Because of this, it becomes that much more important for Amazon to succeed in India, as it’s now the world’s largest market by users. The consumption numbers will also grow with time.”
It’s no overstatement to say that quick commerce could redefine online shopping for Indians, setting a precedent unique to the country. We’ve already seen that happen with UPI, the state-backed peer-to-peer digital payments system that’s outshined credit cards. The company that best adapts to and serves the demands of India’s growing online consumer base will command a share of a rapidly growing e-commerce arena that’s today worth $60 billion in gross merchandise value, according to Bain & Co.
Amazon’s already shifting gears in a highly visible way. Last month, it launched “Now,” a 10-minute delivery service, in some parts of the southern tech hub of Bangalore. That marks its experimental foray into quick commerce. The company is also taking baby steps to plug the money bleed, now charging all
online shoppers 5 rupees ($0.06) in marketplace fees. That’s negligible per transaction, but need I remind you that India is the world’s most populous country and hundreds of millions shop on Amazon?
Even while operating from a position of considerable strength, Amazon sees the rise of its more quick-witted rivals and the shift in consumer behavior, and it’s taking action. To avert those young companies building a comparable retail empire to its own, Amazon will have to show it still has the agility to outrace all comers.
–With assistance from Brunella Tipismana Urbano.
To view this story in Bloomberg click here:
https://blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories/SYPVYEDWLU68
Devangshu Dutta
June 30, 2025
In every strategy meeting today, one metric is invariably mentioned: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Whether you’re a well-funded corporate retailer, or raising your first angel round, or a well-established digital duopolist brand scaling Series C, CAC is one of the key performance metrics. “Real” spend that is neatly broken down by channel, optimised by funnel tweaks, scrutinised to the last rupee or dollar.
But there’s a metric we almost never hear about that could be costing brands far more in the long run.
Let’s call it Customer Forfeiture Cost (CFC), the residual lifetime value that is lost when a customer walks away from your business not because of price, competition, or even shifting needs, but because of a “burn”: a delivery missed or messed up, a refund that took weeks, an arrogant customer service call, or a product that failed spectacularly against the promise. In other words, when your brand hurts someone enough to make them walk away. Probably for ever.
It’s a paradox: brands are pumping thousands of crores into acquiring users, but they’re bleeding value at the other end. Yet, while CAC is a line item in every financial statement, CFC is invisible in management dashboards. CEOs don’t announce, “We’ve cut our forfeiture cost by 20% this quarter.”
Yet. every CXO knows it exists. The NPS scores, the social media complaints, the “never again” comments in reviews, the sinking feeling when repeat purchase rates fall.
Why CFC Matters More Than Ever
In every business, during the early stages each sale is a victory. Whether it was the retail chains that grew in the 1990s and early-2000s or the digital upstarts that came up through 2010s and 2020s, scale has been the mantra, and investors have poured money into scaling through the growing consumption of India 1 and India 2 customers.
Today customer acquisition isn’t cheap. The same person who clicked impulsively in 2020 now thinks twice before confirming payment. In this landscape, retention isn’t optional, it’s existential.
Every lost customer isn’t just a refund processed, or a cart abandoned. It’s the long tail of future repeat purchases that will never happen, negative word of mouth and brand distrust in the customer’s circle of influence, and increased future CAC due to declining organic reach.
Way back in 1967, management consultant Peter Drucker wrote in his book “The Effective Executive”: “What gets measured, gets managed”.
Today your CAC may be Rs. 500-1,000. If the average customer life time value (LTV) is Rs. 10,000, and a single burn causes churn after just one order worth Rs. 2,000, your CFC is Rs. 8,000, and that doesn’t even include reputational spillover.
Why We Don’t Measure It
Yes, CFC is hard to quantify. It’s not as easily attributable as ad spends. There’s usually no neat model telling you why someone never returned, because tech stacks aren’t typically designed to track emotional exits. And let’s face it, introspection about broken relationships is uncomfortable, even for management teams.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not real. If a customer leaves because your delivery executive messed up, or because your app crashed during checkout twice in a row, that’s on you, not the market. And in a business climate where sustainable growth is the mantra, LTV is king.
Ignoring CFC is like watching your roof leak and blaming the rain.
Toward a New Discipline
Brands and retailers must start measuring CFC, the value lost when customers disengage due to friction, mistrust, or neglect, and then start working on reducing it. This can be done by:
The Competitive Edge We’re Not Using
In a crowded space where everyone’s vying for eyeballs, trust is the true moat. Customers don’t expect perfection – they do expect accountability, authenticity, and recovery when things go wrong.
Brands that understand and act on Customer Forfeiture Costs will quietly start building a powerful edge: deeper brand loyalty, lower CAC over time thanks to referrals and repeats and greater lifetime value per user.
In other words, real, compounding value.
As the Indian brand ecosystem matures, Customer Forfeiture Cost needs to be as visible and valued as CAC. Acquisition is the invitation; experience is the relationship. Relationships, once broken, are expensive to rebuild; if they can be rebuilt at all.
In the end, growth isn’t just about who comes in. It’s about who stays, and why.
(Written by Devangshu Dutta, Founder of Third Eyesight, this was published in Financial Express on 2 July 2025)
admin
June 7, 2025
Pooja Yadav, Inc42
7 Jun 2025
SUMMARY: Nearly two decades after its founding, Myntra has made its first international foray with the launch of‘Myntra Global’ in Singapore. Armed with 100+ Indian brands and over 35,000 styles, it is betting big on the 6.5 Lakh-strong Indian diaspora. Shipping directly from India without local warehousing helps avoid upfront costs but could lead to expensive shipping, long delivery times, and tough return logistics.
Nearly two decades after its incorporation in 2007, Myntra announced last month that it marked its first international foray under the new ‘Myntra Global’ banner. The fashion ecommerce marketplace has launched its operations in Singapore.
The Flipkart-owned platform aims to leverage brand loyalty to drive cross-border commerce by tapping into the Indian diaspora of around 6.5 Lakh people in the island nation.
However, while the brand’s intent is clear, the timing and choice of market raise some concerns. For starters, Singapore isn’t going to be an easy market, especially for a newbie like Myntra. This is because the region is filled to the brim with players like Shopee, Shein, Lazada, and Zalora that enjoy a strong brand recognition and stickiness.
Then, experts believe, Singapore-based shoppers are highly selective, constantly seeking great deals and ahead of the rapidly evolving fashion trends. This, among other factors, could make Myntra’s Singapore entry arduous.
So, what makes industry observers say so? Why isn’t Singapore a promising market for Myntra to begin with? What are the stakes at play here — the hits and the misses? Let’s get right into these questions to make sense of Myntra’s Singapore foray.
A Strategic Experiment?
Myntra’s entry into Singapore isn’t just about going global, it’s a strategic experiment to understand how Indian fashion resonates beyond borders.
According to CEO Nandita Sinha, the core of this launch is Myntra’s attempt to test the waters and understand the product-market fit for Indian fashion in an overseas setting.
But why Singapore? Well, the choice was driven by data. Myntra has found that about 10–15% of its web traffic comes from international markets, and Singapore stands out as a concentrated and engaged segment.
According to Statista (2024), approximately 6.5 Lakh Indians reside in Singapore, with around 3 Lakh Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs). Sinha pointed out, “While analysing our data and exploring potential market opportunities, we discovered that nearly 30,000 of these users are visiting our platform every month.”
This organic interest gave the company confidence to make Singapore its first stop under the Myntra Global banner. The platform has gone live in Singapore with 35,000+ styles, which it now plans to scale up to 1 Lakh in the near future.
However, what’s interesting is that Myntra is betting big on desi styles and brands to cater to the Indian diaspora in Singapore. The platform has launched a curated lineup of over 100 Indian brands, including popular names like Aurelia, Global Desi, AND, Libas, Rustorange, Mochi, W, The Label Life, House of Pataudi, Chumbak, Anouk, Bombay Dyeing, and Rare Rabbit.
Whether it’s ethnic wear, fusion fashion, or home décor, the idea is to spotlight Indian design and craftsmanship. Not to mention, Myntra sees significant potential for cultural occasions such as festivals, weddings and special celebrations.
As per Devangshu Dutta, the founder and chief executive of Third Eyesight, Singapore is an ideal market for Myntra’s international test run due to several reasons. For one, it is a digitally advanced, high-income market with a significant Indian diaspora that is familiar with the brands Myntra offers.
“This makes it a natural nucleus for testing an out-of-India offering,” Dutta said, adding that Singapore’s relatively small size makes it easier to manage the complexities of merchandising across different segments, potentially making it a more efficient testing ground.
Moreover, if the business succeeds, Singapore could serve as a strategic launchpad for Myntra to expand into other Southeast Asian markets. However, for now, Myntra’s Singapore launch is less about scale and more about learning.
Ankur Bisen, senior partner and head at Technopak Advisors, said that Myntra’s recent expansion makes strong strategic sense. This is because it is no longer an Indian company, and expanding to Singapore and Southeast Asia offers significant scale and growth opportunities.
“Unlike a purely Indian company, Myntra can explore multiple markets simultaneously and is not restricted to focussing solely on India,” Bisen said.
However, not everything is rainbows and sunshine, as Myntra’s success will only hinge on pricing, local adaptation, and understanding the distinct preferences of the Indian diaspora in Singapore that may be different from Indian buyers. In simple terms, one size may not fit all.
Then, shipping delays and high logistics costs could dilute the value proposition, especially in a market like Singapore where consumers are used to fast and affordable service.
Imperative to mention that Myntra currently has no plans to set up a warehouse in Singapore. Myntra CEO Sinha mentioned that products would be shipped directly from India, where the inventory will be maintained by the brands themselves.
“Myntra Global was not intended to be a localised service tailored to the Singapore market or any other international location. Instead, the focus would remain on serving global consumers from India, with no immediate plans for physical expansion or local warehousing.”
What Could Go Wrong?
Expanding into a new market is always a risky affair. Some potential pitfalls for Myntra could be logistics complexities, return management, and supply chain localisation.
Yash Dholakia, partner, Sauce.vc, too, pointed out that execution risks extend beyond pricing and scale to include logistics, returns, and supply chain.
Dholakia added that Singapore is a different ballgame altogether, as its distinct retail landscape is not an easy feat. “The fashion industry’s fast-changing nature calls for a sharp understanding of Singapore’s diverse, millennial consumers, who have unique cultural preferences and social media-driven buying habits.”
Moreover, many second- or third-generation PIOs see themselves mainly as Singaporean and have different cultural and fashion preferences.
Therefore, assumptions that what works in India will work for this class of consumers may lead to failure.
To hedge this, Myntra will have to take a fully local approach, which will include setting up independent teams on the ground to understand and address these local differences, rather than just copying and pasting its India playbook.
Moreover, from a branding and market reach perspective, targeting just the 10–15% Indian diaspora in Singapore restricts Myntra’s audience significantly. The fashion market in the city-state is already competitive, with several efficient players offering fast and affordable options.
“Myntra’s edge would primarily be Indian ethnic wear, which restricts its ability to emerge as a broad-market contender,” Dholakia said.
Per Dutta, relying heavily on the Indian diaspora may provide a strong initial boost, but this may not sustain for too long.
A Launchpad For D2C Brands
This is not the first time Myntra has tried to enter an international market. In 2020, Myntra partnered with UAE-based platforms, noon and Namshi, to enter the Middle East with a few Indian brands.
However, its current expansion into Singapore looks more ambitious with a cavalry of over 100+ Indian brands.
To strengthen its footprint in Singapore, Myntra is offering free shipping across a wide range of categories, including women’s fashion, kidswear, and home essentials.
Myntra is offering products across a wide range of price buckets. In the women’s tops category, prices start as low as INR 350 with brands like Tokyo Talkies, and go up to INR 4,800 with brands like Berrylush, DressBerry, and Vishudh. Western dresses also extend up to INR 7,100. In ethnic wear, kurtas range from INR 833 to over INR 3,800, while sarees are priced between INR 1,200 and INR 18,000.
“In terms of pricing, it’s ultimately the brands themselves that determine their price positioning on the platform. As they begin listing and transacting with consumers, they will decide how they want to price their products,” said Sinha.
In addition, what could work in its favour is the opportunity to give the global audience a taste of fast-growing Indian D2C brands.
Many Indian internet-first brands haven’t had the chance to engage with global consumers before, but this expansion lets them showcase their products directly to the Indian diaspora in Singapore.
Besides, the expansion will allow Indian brands to understand new consumer preferences, optimise their product mix for cross-border demand, and grow their presence beyond India.
This pilot could indeed spark broader cross-border opportunities for Indian D2C brands. But it demands localised marketing, deep consumer understanding, and a willingness to adapt to regional preferences.
For brands used to making for Indian buyers, this could be a steep but rewarding learning curve. If executed well, it offers them not just an entry into Singapore but a scalable template for global expansion.
The Cross-Border Gamble
Myntra’s global play comes at a time when the ecommerce platform posted a net profit of INR 30.9 Cr in FY24 versus a loss of INR 782.4 Cr in FY23. This turnaround came on the back of a 15% increase in its operational revenue and tighter cost control.
The platform generates revenue through a mix of transaction fees from sellers, logistics services, advertising, and its private labels. To move towards profitability, Myntra brought down its total expenses to INR 5,123 Cr in FY24 from INR 5,290.1 Cr in FY23.
However, its recent entry into Singapore may bring new financial challenges, even as Myntra has opted not to set up a warehouse in Singapore. It would rather ship products from India through third-party logistics providers.
So, is the fashion major being penny-wise and pound-foolish?
Probably. While this asset-light model avoids upfront capital expenditure, it introduces risks such as longer delivery times, higher logistics costs, customs delays and complicated return processes that could sour customer sentiment. For a platform that just turned profitable, these are crucial levers that could strain margins.
Further, even though Myntra is not offering exchange and returns currently, once it does, it could complicate things further.
This is because shipping a 2 Kg fashion parcel from India to Singapore costs an estimated INR 2,800 to INR 3,500, inclusive of air freight, GST, and last-mile delivery. Reverse logistics could add another INR 1,200 to INR 2,000 per item, pushing the total cost per cross-border order significantly higher.
According to Dibyanshu Tripathi, cofounder and CEO of Hexalog, a logistics company, cross-border logistics could significantly impact Myntra’s profitability as it expands into Southeast Asia.
“Sustaining margins will be challenging with high per-order shipping costs, return expenses, and longer delivery timelines that may affect customer satisfaction. Without localised infrastructure or cost efficiencies, profitability in new markets may be hard to maintain despite revenue growth,” Tripathi said.
In contrast, players such as Lenskart and Nike have structured their global expansions with supply chain control at the core.
All in all, Myntra’s Singapore foray is a bold experiment aimed at testing global appetite for Indian fashion, especially among the diaspora.
While the move offers promising opportunities for Indian D2C brands and cross-border growth, it’s also fraught with challenges. For one, with a lack of local infrastructure, high shipping costs and a diaspora divided between two cultures, sustaining this expansion may prove tough. Can Myntra turn its Singapore pitch into a lasting global success story?
(Published on Inc42)
