Online fashion retailer Myntra has won the rights to manage Esprit’s Indian offline stores along with their sale on its online platform, months after the e-commerce firm bagged a similar deal from Spanish fashion brand Mango.
As per the source LiveMint, as a part of this alliance, Myntra will be managing at least 15 offline stores across India over the next five years.
“We are very excited. This is a terrific partnership for us. We are going to be the master distributor both offline and online for Esprit in India—hopefully for a very long time. The reason for this partnership is very simple—as you know our strategy is really about courting brands and around how to build brands in India. We believe that Esprit can be grown into a large-scale brand,” said Myntra chief executive Ananth Narayanan in an interview on Thursday.
Narayanan added that he expected growth from California’s ’68 founded Esprit, to rise at least five folds over the next five years in India.
The brand will also be sold online on Myntra-owned fashion retailer Jabong.
Europe-focused retailer Espirit, has undertaken a massive overhaul of its business and revamped strategies to focus on the broader shift that is sweeping across the retail industry, with the rise of e-commerce.
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As part of this revamp, Esprit has reviewed its operations, slashed operating costs by shutting down stores and also invested heavily in technology.
“By my experience at Esprit and what I know of the retail industry in Asia and this part of the world, we realized that we needed to find an omni-channel solution in the countries where we operate directly. The fastest way to test a market is by testing the brand online and that’s when we met Myntra. That’s when we started discussions around phase 2 of the strategy. And Myntra is a very good partner to build a brand with,” said Guillaume Thery, general manager of the Asia Pacific operations of Esprit.
In June, Myntra had formed brand partnerships with two women’s apparel brands—Chemistry and AKS.
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