With online retailers stealing a march over traditional formats, conglomerate Aditya Birla Group entered the e-commerce space by launching fashionportal abof.com. Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said “the e-commerce sector is a sunrise sector from an investment point of view. While a lot has happened in the last couple of years, a lot more is yet to happen in this space”.
Abof.com (‘All about fashion’) is a one-stop fashion portal for apparel, footwear, and accessories for men and women who are discerning customers but not heavy-discount oriented ones. The portal, which was launched after nine months of work, will not offer kids’ apparel. Aditya Birla Group is already present in the fashion space through Madura Fashion and Pantaloons. As e-commerce grows, the need for certain products to be online increases, people want to be able to find what they want, when they want, and they can do that quickly by searching online. That is why a good e-commerce store is key for customers to keep coming back and for the business to thrive. Utilizing websites software, development resources, and Web Design Services Fort Lauderdale, or services like it, can put these businesses in a better place online and build on that appeal.
Abof has a 3D trial room where customers can try the clothes priced between Rs 300 and Rs 4,000. Customers can instantly view themselves in any product by inputting their basic body proportions and the tool allows one to layer various garments to check out looks.
The portal will offer 7,000 products initially and the company plans to take the total to 20,000 in next few months. The company said half the products will be from the Group’s companies, while others will be sourced externally which will be curated by abof.com.
E-commerce has gained popularity in the last few decades. People may choose to shop online instead of visiting a store to purchase even groceries. And this may have been the reason for the demand of various e-commerce websites, including Amazon, Snapdeal, Etsy, and many more. However, a few of these sites curate very specific items. For instance, Etsy is famous for accessories and jewelry like necklace fashion, crafted earrings, pendants, art and collectibles, digital art, toys, handicrafts, etc. Similarly, abof.com, for now, has a distinctive target – fashion fanatics. Later, they may decide to expand to other products as well, but nothing could be said as of now.
Aditya Birla Group has created a new team of about 200 people- mostly based in Bengaluru and poached from online players such as Snapdeal, Myntra and Zomato-over the last nine months. The group has also tied up with third party vendors for logistics.
