Fashion and lifestyle retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) on Thursday has signed an exclusive deal with online e-commerce giant Flipkart and Myntra to sell its products online in India.
With this, M&S becomes the first major single brand retailer to take this route. India does not allow foreign retailers to sell directly to consumers through online space; however there’s no rule stopping them from getting onto marketplace platforms, like Flipkart, Myntra and others.
.”This new arrangement enables us to extend the reach of our brand to even more customers across the country,” Venu Nair, managing director at Marks & Spencer (M&S) India, was quoted as saying.
“Over the next few months we’ll be bringing even more of our popular product ranges to the sites,” he added.This move makes India the second market where M&S will sell its products through a third-party website. The company sells products online through its own websites in several countries. M&S operates in India through a 51:49 joint venture with Reliance Industries. The firm runs 47 M&S branded outlets and plans to more than double the number in the next two years.
According to a recent report by PwC, online retailing in India grew 56% annually between 2009 and 2014. E-tailing in India is expected to swell to USD6 billion (about Rs 37,200 crore) in 2015 from USD3.5 billion last year, as per the report.
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