In tune with its promise to look at smaller e-commerce firms for acquisition, lifestyle and fashion e-tailer Yebhi.com has acquired Stylishyou, an online shop offering fashion jewellery. The deal includes both cash and equity, and Yebhi has also acquired the merchandising team as part of this deal. However, the monetary details of the deal have not been disclosed.
Set up in January 2011 by entrepreneur Shraddha Danani, Stylishyou is positioned to be a one-stop portal for exclusive brands of designer jewellery and accessories. Shraddha’s previous outing as an entrepreneur was at Design Studio, which housed designer home accessories. She has also been associated with Accenture and Tata Infotech in her prior stints.
Asked about the acquisition, Yebhi owner Manmohan Agarwal said, “We at Yebhi make constant efforts to improvise on the basis of people’s feedback. Now, the demand is highest for jewellery and we will ensure that along with lifestyle, Yebhi will also be India’s largest online jewellery store.”
Commenting on her latest move, Shraddha, “I am excited to join the Yebhi team. I look forward to an interesting journey with the basic intent of leading the jewellery category in the country and participation across existing and new products.”
When asked to comment on whether it is an acquisition-hire, Agarwal stated that Yebhi had acquired all assets of Stylishyou. However, as Shraddha Danani is joining the board as head (jewellery) and all assets, merchandise and the team have been acquired, it looks like an acq-hire only. The site is currently “under maintenance” and according to Agarwal, they are yet to decide whether to keep the site running side by side or to shut it down.
While speaking to Techcircle.in earlier this year, Agarwal said that the company was looking at small e-commerce firms for acquisition. He had also said that Yebhi might look at babycare products in the near future.
Talking about future acquisitions, Agarwal informed us that two more acquisitions are already in the pipeline but he refused to divulge the segments. “Yebhi will become a complete horizontal player in the near future and that is our strategy,” he added. He was also very optimistic about the new category and said that the company would target a jewellery market of Rs 100 crore in the coming 2-3 years itself.
Consolidation seems to be the call of e-com firms this year with Flipkart buying Letsbuy, Snapdeal acquiring eSportsBuy and now an acquisition by Yebhi in the lifestyle category. Will this become the trend and will we see more of consolidation and less of the vertical players surviving? What do you think?