US ecommerce giant eBay Inc, which trails Amazon and Flipkart despite having the first-mover advantage in India , is looking at expanding its fashion and lifestyle categories and acquiring online fashion retailers.
So far, though, two acquisition attempts have failed. The company held unsuccessful talks for a possible buyout of Fashionara and Rocket Internet-backed Jabong , people familiar with the matter said. “There were talks going on for a possible sale of Jabong to eBay a few months ago. However, they failed as eBay asked Jabong to completely change to a marketplace model that eBay operates.
There has not been any such talks since then,” the person added. Gurgaon-based online fashion and lifestyle portal Jabong, owned by Global Fashion Group (GFG), used to run a largely inventory-led model, which means the company bought stock before selling. However, lately it moved to a marketplace model to cut costs and expand faster. Apart from Jabong, the Indian unit of San Jose, California-based eBay was in talks with other online fashion and lifestyle retailers such as Fashionara for acquisition.
However, nothing materialised after reaching advanced discussions, one person said, adding that eBay is still in the market for acquiring fashion etailers. Fashion is one of the fastestgrowing categories in India’s rapidly growing ecommerce market. In 2014, market leader Flipkart acquired Myntra.com for about $300 million to shore up its fashion and lifestyle portfolio . Amazon has been aggressively ramping up its own fashion category with heavy advertising of lifestyle products.