Myntra in talks to open physical stores in malls

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Sep 19, 2018

The online fashion portal Myntra is in talks about opening large scale brick-and-mortar stores in several mall locations with different formats including “Myntra Beauty”, “Myntra Women”, and “Myntra Sports”.

The Economic Times spoke with a number of Indian mall executives in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru and six of them reported that Myntra had approached them within the last few months to seek retail space for a possible store opening. The spaces Myntra was reportedly seeking ranged from 3,000 square feet for makeup outlets to between 20,000 and 30,000 square feet for department stores.

Sources reported that the three formats of Myntra stores, beauty, women, and sports, will be franchise run and other formats may also be developed. Myntra is pursuing an omni-channel retail strategy and opening more physical retail outlets would work to strengthen this. Myntra is also looking to establish a presence at malls and on high-streets to reach customers who do not shop online or who want to see an item in person before purchasing it, which is especially important for footwear.

The e-tailer has master franchisee deals with Mango from Spain and Esprit from Hong Kong and has the licence for opening physical stores for the brands in India. Myntra is reported by the Economic Times to be currently in talks to forge a similar deal with the UK-based high-street fashion retailer Dorothy Perkins.

On top of this, Myntra plans to launch 100 brick-and-mortar stores in the next two years, half for its private fashion label Roadster and half for other brands including Esprit and Mango.