H&M ties up to sell online in India with Myntra, Jabong

H&M has gone into an association with Flipkart-owned fashion marketplaces Myntra and Jabong to sell its merchandise online in India.

A representative for H&M disclosed to ET that the joint effort will be vital to H&M's current physical and digital stores in India. The world's second biggest style retailer had launched its e-commerce store in the country a year ago.

While the company did not divulge any details, people aware of the matter said the deal will give Myntra and Jabong exclusive rights to sell H&M products online in India for five-six years. Products start getting listed in the next three-four months. “With this collaboration, we are focused on bringing the best of fashion across India and launching H&M’s latest trends,” said Amar Nagaram, head of Myntra and Jabong, which together have some 15 million customers. While Myntra and Jabong have exclusive rights over eight other global fashion brands for online sales, the latest tie-up with H&M has been structured differently to comply with recent regulations that don’t allow marketplaces to enter exclusive deals with brands.

For H&M India, deals development of over 29% a year ago was lower than that in the previous years, when it had multiplied its business every year. In any case, H&M's online execution does not mirror the scorching pace of sales growth of its brick-and-mortar business.

Myntra had signed master franchise deals with Mango and Esprit to not only market products online but also to run their offline stores and manage the brand’s partnership with multi-brand offline retailers. The move to tap global brands both online and offline was a strategy led by Mynta’s former CEO Ananth Narayanan, who quit the company earlier this year following restructuring at Walmart owned parent company Flipkart.