admin
January 28, 2026
What does it actually take to build a fashion brand in India?
This panel (“Beyond the Noise- How D2c Fashion Brands Are Reinventing Retail”) at the 25th Edition of India Fashion Forum focussed on some real answers, in a refreshing, down-to-earth conversation moderated by Devangshu Dutta (Founder, Third Eyesight), with the founders of DeMoza (Agnes Raja George), The Mom Store (Surbhi Bhatia), Miraggio (Mohit Jain), BeyondBound (Tejasvi Madan), and Bari (Sameer Khan Lodhi).
No fluff, no “disrupting the industry” talk. Just founders being honest about what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what they’d do differently. A few things that struck a chord:
• Every single brand started because the founder couldn’t find something they personally wanted: inclusive activewear, affordable handbags that didn’t look cheap, good maternity wear. Sometimes the simplest observation is the best business idea.
• Inventory management came up often. One founder took their inventory cycle from 6 months down to 4. Another re-shuffles stock every 15 days based on what’s selling where. Unglamorous? Yes, but this is what actually keeps a business alive.
• The marketing conversation highlighted a move away from traditional advertising toward things that actually make people feel something. One founder talked about turning a farmhouse into a full “apricot colour” experience for customers. Another shoots content with real customers, not influencers.
• And the most memorable line of the whole discussion came from the most experienced founder in the room sharing a learning: “I won’t open stores fast.” No explanation needed, really.
Building a brand is exciting. Keeping it alive is the harder, quieter work. This panel was a good reminder of that. Worth a watch if you’re building something in this space.
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)
admin
April 21, 2021
Debojyoti Ghosh, Fortune India
April 21, 2021
Billionaire entrepreneur Kumar Mangalam Birla-led retailer Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) has continued its build-up in the ethnic wear market with its fourth deal since 2019 and second this year. In February, the Mumbai-based fashion retailer picked up a 33.5% stake in fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani’s Goodview Properties—that will own and operate the designer’s eponymous couture label—for ₹67 crore. That was a month after ABFRL acquired a 51% stake in Kolkata-based designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s company, Sabyasachi Couture, which sells garments, accessories, and fine jewellery, for ₹398 crore.
ABFRL, which owns fashion brands such as Louis Philippe and Van Heusen, said in a statement that ethnic wear “is a large and growing market with a significant opportunity to build scale” and expects it to be an important category over the next few years.
Experts note the two recent deals come as the luxury industry, including fashion, has been hammered by the pandemic. The year-long shutdown in global travel has slowed over a decade of growth across luxury categories. Indeed, the global fashion industry’s profit is expected to have slumped about 93% in 2020, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey and The Business of Fashion in December.
“[Luxury] business has been hit hard during the pandemic, like all fashion and retail businesses. And a significant injection of money is needed to maintain the business momentum, and to scale it further,” says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consultancy Third Eyesight.
In March, Italy’s billionaire Agnelli family—best known as the founders of automaker Fiat—acquired a 24% stake in French luxury shoemaker Christian Louboutin for $642 million. Three months before that it paid $95 million for a controlling stake in Shang Xia Paris, a Chinese luxury goods business founded by French luxury brand Hermès and Chinese designer Jiang Qiong Er.
Many fashion firms have used the Covid-19-induced slowdown to reshape business models, streamline operations, and sharpen their customer propositions, said the report by McKinsey and The Business of Fashion.
And that is exactly what Tahiliani plans to do with his new corporate partner. The duo will create a new entity—80% held by ABFRL and 20% by Tahiliani—to launch a new brand of apparel and accessories in the affordable premium ethnic wear segment, while it also plans to launch a men’s ethnic wear brand.
“Discussions with ABFRL have been in the works for nearly two years. I couldn’t be happier about entering into this partnership. They understand scale and numbers like no one else in the market today. Each of their home-grown brands is a resounding success,” Tahiliani, founder and CEO of Tarun Tahiliani Brand, tells Fortune India. “This collaboration permits me the financial freedom to focus on designing,” he adds.
ABFRL aims to build the new ethnic wear brand into a ₹500-crore business in the next five years, with more than 250 stores across India. The first tranche of stores is expected to open by September. “This new entity with ABFRL currently concentrates only on menswear. In our collective opinion, at present, there is only one branded national player in the Indian ethnic [wear] for men space. In order to scale this up, we need to be in three or four categories of clothing. This will give depth, both in terms of style and sizing to the men who come into the store,” says Tahiliani.
Currently, the top panIndia ethnic wear brand for men is Vedant Fashions’ Manyavar. The Kolkata-based company forayed into women’s wear in 2016 selling lehengas, saris, and the like under the label Mohey,
ABFRL’s previous deals in the segment—both in 2019—were a 51% stake in fashion designers Shantanu & Nikhil’s Finesse International Design for a reported ₹60 crore, and its ₹110-crore acquisition of Jaypore. Both make apparel, footwear, accessories, and other items.
ABFRL’s managing director, Ashish Dikshit, declined to comment for this story. ABFRL had, when announcing the Sabyasachi Couture investment, said it expected that deal to accelerate its strategy to build a comprehensive portfolio of brands across segments, occasions, and geographies.
Experts say ABFRL’s recent investments allow it to tap into the designer’s creative stream and goodwill, while providing the financial and organisational muscle of a large corporate. Albeit one that is not aiming too far upmarket.
“We shouldn’t see the ABFRL [stake] acquisitions as entry into couture, which is a different business from the ready-to-wear market. It is the expansion of these brands into ready-to-wear, tapping into the desirability of the designer brand, while making it accessible and affordable to a larger market is what will be of interest,” says Third Eyesight’s Dutta.
Indeed, Mukherjee, in a press release in late January, noted, “As my brand evolved and matured, I began searching for the right partner in order to ensure continuity and long-term sustainable growth.”
Nonita Kalra, a veteran fashion editor, says that the ABFRL deal shows the growing heft of the [Sabyasachi] brand in the fashion business. “Corporates aren’t sentimental. They are hard-nosed about investments, with careful due-diligence. ABFRL is paying what it is worth and expecting it to grow bigger. They are never going to invest in a stagnant business,” she says.
Experts, though, caution that while corporate partnerships and acquisitions allow a designer-entrepreneur and their investor partners to unlock some of the value being built, it is essential to have clarity about each brand’s design language and target consumer. “With [ABFRL’s] new venture [in men’s ethnic wear with Tahiliani], the key thing to understand is how the company will differentiate it from Shantanu & Nikhil’s positioning and focus, which is also menswear-driven,” says Abneesh Roy, executive vice president, Edelweiss Securities. “The challenge will be ensuring that each brand maintains its distinctive identity, while deriving synergies from the group.”
ABFRL has stitched up some unique deals; it now has to ensure they don’t unravel.
(The story originally appeared in Fortune India‘s April 2021 issue).
admin
September 12, 2016
Suneera Tandon, Quartz
New Delhi, 12 September
2016
The Platonic ideal
“Efficiency
is doing better what is already being done.” – Peter Drucker,
Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Practices and Principles
The practice
Research
firm Gartner defines supply chain as, “…the processes of creating and
fulfilling demands for goods and services. It encompasses a trading
partner community engaged in the common goal of satisfying end
customers.”
Sounds simple? But it hardly is. In fact, the
supply chain can be one of the most complex structures in a business,
piecing together design, development, sourcing, manufacturing, and
distribution. It gets even more complex when it relies on rural India,
which is scattered over 640,867 villages and are often hard to access.
Fabindia, a chain of retail stores, has spent close to five decades
scoping India’s hinterland to connect rural Indian artisans to urban
shoppers. Here’s how they did it.
Fabindia began its India
sojourn back in 1960 when John Bissell, who was first introduced to the
country in 1958 while on a two-year grant from the Ford Foundation,
decided to set up an export shop to sell home furnishings to overseas
customers. Bissell, whose work at the foundation involved advising
government-based craft organizations on handloom fabrics, spent a lot
of time traversing the length and breadth of the country.
In
1976, the export house diversified into retail through a small store
that sold leftovers from export orders in Delhi’s tony market of
Greater Kailash. It took another two decades for retail to became the
mainstay of the company’s business.
Fifty years later, Fabindia,
managed by John’s son William Bissell, is a widely recognized global
brand, known for handwoven and hand-made goods that connect some 55,000
artisans from the country to consumers worldwide. In the process, it
has achieved two broad goals: to market the handloom tradition of India
to the rest of the world and to provide sustained employment to
artisans in rural areas.
The chain sells everything from
handwoven saris, rugs, apparel, home d�cor, and organic food in its 220
stores across 83 cities in India, including eight stores in overseas
markets such as Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia etc. It also retails its
products online to 33 countries. For the fiscal year 2014-15, Fabindia
had a turnover of Rs1,148 crore (approximately $170 million).
But
behind the red and black Ikat-printed scarves, Kalamkari prints from
south India, and block-printed Bagru fabric from north India is an
extensive and complex supply chain that runs from villages across the
country, covering a third of India’s over 650 districts.
The
retailer has successfully taken its founder’s vision to enable social
change at the grassroots level while engaging in a profit-making
business for urban shoppers. It does this while building systems that
encourage not just fair remuneration to India’s rural artisans, but
also provides infrastructure, access to technology and systems, quality
guidelines, and timely payments to these craftsmen. Fabindia also
offers access to capital and raw materials to artisans working with the
retailer.
As William Bissell puts it in a Harvard Business
School case study: “It seems contradictory that we pursue both a social
goal and a profit, but I believe that is the only way to do it.”
Through most of the ’90s and early 2000s, Fabindia grew as a retail chain expanding modestly in the country’s top metros.
Since
the opening of the Indian economy through the economic reforms of 1991,
Fabindia’s interaction with artisans scattered across the country has
grown significantly (pdf). The complexity of the company’s supply chain
is far different from that of a regular manufacturer that works through
designated factories.
The company’s interaction with these
artisans is very localized since it works with them through multiple
associations. The retailer deals directly with individual artisans who
work out of their homes and also with clusters of crafters and rural
NGOs and organizations that have a crafts supply base.
In
addition, the company uses its 11 production hubs across the country,
which are basically aggregation points, to centralize orders and pair
up vendors with artisans. Each hub has a number of field offices
attached to it.
“The production hubs and field offices act as
nodal points for interaction with the artisans that constitute the
supply chain, which is one of the most unique in the world,” said
Prableen Sabhaney, head of communications and public affairs at
Fabindia Overseas.
While most artists have the skill and the
craft, they don’t have the acumen to decipher fashion trends for the
season. So Fabindia acts like a conduit between their crafts and the
market.
At Fabindia, a large proportion of products carry some
element of the handmade, which requires an ability to communicate with
artisans and institute quality control as most artisans work largely in
India’s hinterland. For instance, an 18-step process is required to
create a simple pattern in Bagru print, a traditional form of
block-printing using natural dyes perfected in the northern state of
Rajasthan.
And the company has spent years putting processes to
ensure newer collections reach the stores on time. Recently, the
product range has become more diversified as well.
As for
remuneration, Fabindia follows a bottom-up structure. It asks artists
what it costs them in terms of—time, energy, skills, and raw material
to hand-make a certain fabric or accessory and pays accordingly.
Analysts
who track the sector believe that Fabindia’s unique model sets it apart
from other domestic or export-focused handicraft companies purely
because of the sheer volume of artisans it works with.
“In
handicraft, there are several companies that have created substantial
export-led supply bases, which tap into craft both from the rural
artisans as well as those based in smaller urban centers,” Devangshu
Dutta, chief executive at consulting firm, Third Eyesight said.
“Among
these, Fabindia has certainly had the most visible success in terms of
size and brand profile domestically. Fabindia has achieved scale by
working through artists, intermediaries and supplier companies who have
acted as anchors in the rural communities,” said Dutta.
Sabhaney
offers that challenges span from co-creating contemporary products
while using traditional techniques to quality issues, since the
products are created in environments that are very different from where
they are finally used. The company also works hard to provide access to
raw material and capital across many hard-to-access areas—and doing all
of this at scale.
“The ability to do this and not lose anything
in translation has been and will continue to be Fabindia’s strength,”
added Sabhaney.
The takeaways
As
the market evolves with e-commerce and the entry of foreign brands,
which has altered consumer preferences and style-cycles, Fabindia knows
it needs to quicken its response to these changes.
Not all of
the innovations the company has tested remain. In a unique ownership
structure created by Bissell, Fabindia set up supplier regional
communities (SRCs), which were community owned companies, self-managed
by a group of artisans, weavers and craft workers in a particular
geography back in 2007. According to a case study by INSEAD (pdf),
these SRC’s “offered artisans joint ownership of resources and access
to common facilities. It also trained artisans and developed new
handicrafts. The SRC allowed Fabindia to consolidate supply capacity
instead of dealing with single-loom weaver units, and to implement a
standard system for production and delivery control.”
The 2010
book, The Fabric of Our Lives reveals how production worked under the
SRC model. A number of dedicated designers and sourcing officers worked
closely with rural artists giving them design inputs in tandem with the
latest trends in the market and order quantities through dedicated
distribution centers in key villages. These designers worked with the
weaver to develop samples. They were then shown by the designers that
refer it to a product selection committee. The fabric was then approved
and the cost price finalized. The quantity of fabric to be produced the
first time was pre-determined by software based on a minimum stock
requirement ratio and an order is given to the weaver to make the
product. The weaver produced the requisite amount of fabric in a month
and brought it into the distribution centers.
But the SRC model has now been diluted as the company looks more innovative ways to engage rural artisans.
In
the company’s next vision plan, it is focusing more on cluster
development that will basically help bring artisans up to speed with
the processes and market trends.
“There are plans for a greater focus on the handloom and hand-craft sector,” Sabhaney said.
“There
is a much bigger focus on the social aspect, there are going to be
significant investments in developing clusters and bringing them up to
what is required around the country,” she added.
(Published in Quartz)
