Finding ways to improve with tech innovations

One of the leading fashion etailers of the country, Jabong, was recently in the news for investing $2 Mn in an on-demand convenience brand, Wassup. Jabong Co-founders, Praveen and Arun have made the investment in their personal capacities and will be associated with Wassup in an advisory role. Jabong is known to clock up impressive top line numbers.

Retailer Media caught up with Jabong’s Co-founder and CEO Arun Chandra Mohan, to know more about how the company is set to provide a better experience to all its customers. The idea, Arun says, is to invest heavily on the technology front to smoothen customer interaction.

 

Tell us how Jabong has evolved after being in the business for a while now.

A lot of scaling up has happened lately. We have scaled up our business substantially; we have built brand awareness and have also invested heavily in supply chain. Our brand portfolio is comprehensive. We have about 1,500 brands. As of now, we are offering almost around 220,000 styles to our consumers in fashion, which I think is enormous. So, I think it is a substantial business from what it started in 2011.

 

Being an online marketplace, why do you promote so extensively on TVs and OOH campaigns?

As a platform we need to reinforce our value proposition and strengthen customer connection. We need to invest in branding and so, today, we are very pleased to have Jabong leading in the fashion front, which, in my opinion, is the result of the promotions that we do that help us connect with our customers everywhere.

 

What are your plans for betterment in services for Tier II and III cities?

We are still growing and plan to be there in each city. And as and when we get scaled, we will introduce better services. Obviously, the ultimate goal is to expand, but we need to prioritise on our key markets and then slowly and steadily expand.

 

Talk to us about the technology innovations that have been done in order to improve the customer experience.

At Jabong, we are continuously finding ways to improve with the help of technology innovations. There are many instances to support that. We have heavily invested in mobile, customer order tracking, paying by cards, quick delivery etc and many more are coming. We have a new technology team, too, that we are building up in Bengaluru. In addition, many other exciting technology innovations are expected in the next 18-24 months.

 

Are you planning to cater to some other categories apart from fashion?

Not really, we are a fashion player and this is what excites us. There is a lot of work to do here and fashion will be the only category we will be focusing on.

 

How good are the sales for Jabong’s private-labelled items?

It is tracking quite well. The overall unit sales would be close to 20 per cent, which is decent. We are very happy with the responses.

 

In 2015, what are your strategies to stay ahead in the market?

We need to invest more aggressively in technology. It is a continuous development and we are learning many new things from our customers and this is something that needs to grow. And mobile is going to be a very big part of our strategies in the coming months.

 

How have you created your backend to perform well during seasonal sales and festivals?

We have invested in multiple scalability solutions. Right now, the scalability per say is not a concern.

 

Could you talk to us about the reasons behind investing in Wassup?

Jabong has nothing to do with this investment. It is a personal investment from Praveen and me. I liked the idea and the founders Balachandar R and Durga Das. What they are providing is a very fundamental value proposition which can serve the market in the times to come.