Flipkart shutters fashion ecommerce platform Jabong

Walmart-owned ecommerce company Flipkart has shut down Jabong, four years after it bought the fashion etailer for about $70 million. Jabong users are being redirected to the Myntra, which now takes centerstage as the Bengaluru-based company’s flagship fashion ecommerce brand.

Email queries from TechCircle to Flipkart and Myntra didn’t elicit responses at the time of publishing this report. 

The shutdown, however, comes as no surprise. In July last year, Flipkart said it was looking to curb marketing expenses in Jabong and redirect customers to Myntra through various incentives.

Flipkart had acquired Myntra in 2014, after which the latter acquired Jabong from Rocket Internet backed Global Fashion Group in 2016. Flipkart has since been trying to build a long term strategy for Jabong. 

In November 2018, the company had revealed plans to merge the operations of Myntra and Jabong and had also culled some 200 jobs.

In its last reported earnings, Jade Services, the entity that owns Jabong, narrowed its losses for the financial year ended March 31, 2019, on higher revenues and curtailed spending.

US retail giant Walmart, which acquired Flipkart in May 2018, said that the company took a $290 million hit on account of merger of operations of Myntra and Jabong and wrote off the brand value of the latter. 

Flipkart reportedly commands 70% of the the Indian clothing market at present, which McKinsey's FashionScope pegged at $59.3 billion by 2022.