By Saloni Dutta
As the e-commerce industry in India booms, Praveen Sinha, Founder and Managing Director, Jabong.com deconstructs the vision and marketing strategies behind the fashion portal
Q] What was the idea behind Jabong’s recently launched football commercial? How profitable has the football shop been?
Our FIFA commercial is an occasion-based campaign, for all fans of football to come together and form a community. We have always been a young and youth-driven company, and the 15-35 year age group is our major client base. We are always actively engaged in sports; we were also part of the NBA assortment in India. We found that Indian youth follow FIFA a lot. So definitely it fits our target audience. The FIFA special merchandise is selling well. It has brought great traction for us. Sales from our sports segment grew more than three times.
Q] Tell us about the marketing mix for Jabong.
I would break it into online and offline, broadly in terms of spends and communication. Digital is a major contributor, but there are always these spikes when we become overly active on TV. Apart from TV, there is our association with Bollywood movies like Main Tera Hero recently, and with fashion properties like Lakme Fashion Week and India Online Fashion Week. We also have some screen displays at airports, fast food joints, etc. Online, we use Google, Facebook and paid media like blogs, etc. We are active on Twitter as well, but not in terms of conversion. Another part of the engagement is the overall Jabong presence - how we stand for fashion. Recently, we came out with a special campaign, where the entire website was given an entry point 40% cheaper than MRP.
Q] What role does social media play in your brand’s communication?
It plays a relatively high role, and since we are an online portal, it becomes even more relevant. It has huge implication because the engagement levels on social portals are relatively high. Word of mouth spreading through a tweet, etc., is how the impression of a brand gets built or destroyed. Facebook and Twitter are the most active and relevant.
Q] Jabong has also recently started an online magazine, Juice. What is the vision for it?
The insight was to reach out to loyal customers at coffee houses, etc., to circulate what new fashion will look like. Also the digital form of the magazine is clickable, so you can actually go to the product assortment and buy. And it has huge distribution of more than one lakh copies.
Q] What are the ideas and planning behind new online stores and product lines?
It is a collaborative effort where the buying and marketing teams come together and decide how to popularize and communicate the new brands to customers, but before that, we have intense customer feedback. There is a customer voice that you have to touch base with, and they are aware of what they want, but sometimes the message is not well articulated. Some of them say, for example, ‘I want XYZ brand’, others know they want something trendy, but not exactly what it is. The first struggle is how to get them on board, the brands and these designers and then the second part is spreading it across in terms of communication where online really helps.
Q] How has your customer profile evolved since you started in 2012?
We see a movement of customers from one category to another; for example in five years, a bachelor would be a married person and a married couple would have a family and their buying pattern changes accordingly. In three years, we have seen the trend that customers start by shopping for themselves, and then evolve to gifting and buying for others. First they test, and then they grow. Then the loyalty increases, which was anticipated if we do the right job. There has not been a generation shift as the youth’s demand has not changed drastically in the last three years, though they are very vocal and transparent about what they want compared to a generation earlier. They are more individual in taste. Also they are moving from laptop to mobile, and one can gradually see the trend where many people are now more comfortable buying fashion products on their mobile phones.
Q] How do you ensure customer loyalty?
Consumers always have different reasons to be loyal. Some of them will be price sensitive, some will have hygiene logic and some would be service-driven. We provide one of the best services and work towards newer ways to engage. We have a better assortment and get more new brands and have one of the best curated collections. Also, we ensure that customers get what they are looking for. The second is service and we are better at delivering the products. We also manage the right price point. Our loyalty is pretty high. Out of the total business, more than 50% comes from repeat customers.
Q] What are Jabong’s plans for the international market?
We have Jabong world, but we are currently not aggressive or focussed in selling or trying to curate for international clients. We are trying to curate products for the Indian consumers abroad and also consumers who like to wear Indian dresses for occasions like an Indian wedding or a Bollywood theme party.
Q] What is the brand’s current marketshare in India?
According to me, in the fashion domain, we are No. 1. Myntra used to be No.1 in the third quarter of the last calendar year and from the fourth quarter, we started becoming bigger. The gap would be 20-30% more in both revenue and number of orders approximately.
Q] What’s the USP of the brand?
There are three strong differentiators for Jabong - the first one is a better and bigger assortment including the likes of Rohit Bal, Dorothy Perkins, Mango and River Island. We have 1,50,000 options while the second person in business has some 60-70,000 options. Then comes the service level - we were the first to introduce things like same day delivery, exchange, return, and in fact there is a pilot running for refunding cash to cash-on-delivery customers. We have also started making our presence felt by communicating the way we stand for fashion; for example Juice, India Online Fashion Week and Lakme Fashion Week. We capture content and information from trend-setters and influencers of fashion for our target audience. We will nurture creative talent all over India through India Online Fashion Week.
Q] How does the brand approach Tier II and Tier III markets?
We do not separate metros, Tier II and Tier III in terms of communication. Mobile penetration will be higher and courier reach would be lower in smaller cities. Strategically, there is not a huge difference because the awareness and inspiration level is not different; what is lacking is reach and delivery. In terms of brand communication, it cannot change its positioning from metro to non-metro. We stand for youth and we stand for fashionable products.
Q] What do you see as e-commerce’s future in India? What are some of the emerging trends that you predict in the coming year?
Firstly, mobile will become very relevant. Secondly growth will happen. In five years, the e-commerce industry will become worth $18 billion. There will also be a lot of evolution in terms of infrastructure processes and awareness for e-commerce. And if the Internet connectivity issue gets resolved either through 4G or some other means, then there would be an inflection point, where the growth will be much higher than what we see today.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Jabong.com is a fashion multi-brand e-store. It has more than 1,500 on-trend international high-street brands, sports labels as well as Indian ethnic and designer labels. Jabong.com also associates itself with major Bollywood blockbusters to bring in a new wave in fashion trends. It offers services like express delivery, 30-day return policy and open box delivery for prompt and efficient service.
CMO FILE
Praveen Sinha, Co-Founder and a Managing Director, Jabong.com looks after the entire operations capability along with supply chain management. He has been associated and worked with companies such as Mckinsey, Microsoft and Maruti Udyog as well as diverse small businesses/start-ups. He is an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering and IIM, Calcutta. He has also acted as energy advisory and auditor for plants in China, Thailand, Taiwan and India across sectors - cement, steel and power plants. Sinha’s Linkedin profile has made it to ‘Power Profiles 2012: The Most Viewed Professionals on LinkedIn in India’.
MARKETING TIP
Learn the fundamentals of marketing which are eternal, because techniques and tools keep changing. Never stick to ‘What has worked today will work tomorrow’.
FACTS
CREATIVE AGENCY: BANG IN THE MIDDLE
MEDIA AGENCY: ZENITH OPTIMEDIA
SOCIAL AND DIGITAL MEDIA MARKETING: DONE IN HOUSE
PR AGENCY: AVIAN MEDIA
