Vying for the fashion conscious: Myntra could soon sell clothes from Marks and Spencer

As e-commerce portals attempt to expand their presence in the domain of fashion, online apparel retailer Myntra is reportedly close to signing a deal to start selling products made by leading British retailer Marks and Spencer. According to an Economic Times report, the tie up would be only the second of its kind in the world where Marks and Spencer would be selling its products through a third party website. [caption id=“attachment_2109317” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image[/caption] In keeping with foreign direct investment norms the British retailer only has physical stores in India and doesn’t have any online presence apart from a website that showcases its products. It also doesn’t retail any of its food and non-clothing products in India. While the two companies haven’t commented on the matter so far, the development wouldn’t be a surprise given the growing interest among established fashion brands and chains using e-commerce chains to reach out to more customers. Marks and Spencer’s competitors like Shoppers Stop are also looking at tapping online e-commerce channels in the next few weeks. The Indian retailer will also be ramping up its own website to increase its online sales, which currently constitutes less than one per cent of its total turnover. Others like Lifestyle, Spencer’s Retail are also expected to follow suit. The move comes amid signs that aggressive discounting by online retailers are likely to continue in FY 2016. The situation has come to a head, where brick and mortar stores can no longer allow etailers to eat into their market share and are jumping on the bandwagon to ensure they don’t lose out. Fashion has been a area of particular interest to e-retailers with Flipkart’s acquisition of Myntra, Amazon planning its own fashion site and  Snapdeal acquiring designer wear retailer Exclusively.in on Thursday. Given the optimistic outlook for fashion in the e-commerce space, all the major players have shown major interest in this segment.