E-commerce major Snapdeal.com, run by Delhi-based Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, has acquired Indian designer wear and accessories etailer Exclusively.com (formerly Exclusively.in) for an undisclosed amount.
Founded in June 2010, Exclusively.com initially targeted the US and the UK markets but now the company also caters to Indian consumers. In 2012 Exclusively.in Inc, which owned Exclusively.in and its private label casual wear brand Sher Singh, was acquired by Myntra. However, a year later Myntra sold back Exclusively.in to its co- founders, husbad-wife duo Sunjay and Mohini Guleria, while retaining Sher Singh as a private label on its own lifestyle e-com site. Myntra was last year acquired by Flipkart, the largest consumer focused e-commerce company in India.
According to Snapdeal, the acquisition has been made with an aim to strengthen its fashion business and reach $2 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in the category in 2015.
"We have witnessed a surge in the demand from consumers across the country for premium and luxury products. However, given that access to luxury brands is limited in our country, we have acquired Exclusively to provide our users with access to a range of aspirational, high end products and services," said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal.com.
As part of the acquisition, Exclusively will complement Snapdeal’s existing ecosystem and will provide a consolidated offering for the luxury and lifestyle shopper. It will continue to function as an independent site and all aspects of Exclusively’s online shopping experience will remain intact -- with new collection and service augmentations in the pipeline. Snapdeal on the other hand will help the company scale up and expand its current business and reach.
As of now, Exclusively retails products from designers like Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, Manish Arora, Anita Dongre, Rohit Bal, Shivan & Narresh, Gaurav Gupta, JJ Valaya, Ritu Kumar, Varun Bahl, and Neeta Lulla, to name a few. This year, the company plans to launch leading international luxury brands and designers on its site.
“With increased awareness and growing disposable incomes, premium and luxury consumption in India is seeing a significant upward trend. With the geographical limitations of the brick-and-mortar model, we believe that the luxury and premium segments can only be grown by sharing access with the consumer," said Sunjay Guleria, co-founder, Exclusively.com.
"With Exclusively’s fashion experience and Snapdeal’s scale of operations, we look forward to not just servicing large metros, but also the aspirational demand in smaller towns across India,†added Mohini Boparai-Guleria, co-founder, Exclusively.com.
Snapdeal was started in 2010 as an online deals site, which later pivoted to a full-fledged horizontal e-commerce company with a marketplace model in September 2011. It claims to have 5 million-plus products across more than 500 categories from thousands of regional, national, and international brands and retailers. Snapdeal has now become one of the fastest growing and among the top three online marketplaces in India, with more than 30 million registered users and more than 50,000 vendors.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)