bangalore womenfocused fashion portal fashionara has launched flea bazaar an emarketplace where consumers can buy a host of quirky products from apparel to notepads showcased by local shops and boutique stores the move aimed at expanding portfolio reach and profits clubs bangalorebased fashionara with online retailers flipkart myntra and jabong in an emarketplace the company does not stock inventory but links sellers and buyers top domestic ecommerce players including flipkart and amazon are betting on fashion as their fastest growing category since the margins offered in the business are the highest with our flea marketplace we want to get the experience of street shopping on janpath delhi or linking road mumbai to come online said arun sirdeshmukh chief executive of fashionara which is backed by helion venture partners and lightspeed venture partners the portal which expects to sign up about 500 vendors this year will however continue to sell popular brands like biba and free culture in an inventoryled model fashionaras sirdeshmukh added arvind singhal chairman of retail advisory firm technopak said there is no risk of inventoryrelated costs there is more choice for customers and little or no working capital requirement in the marketplace model which makes it a good opportunity in india the marketplace model gained traction after the worlds largest online retailer seattlebased amazon entered the country last year while companies including myntra and jabong have tweaked their business models from being completely inventory led to a hybrid one mainly to get access to foreign direct investment fdi which is currently not allowed in direct online retail other retailers including limeroad launched its business with the marketplace approach once you buy inventory you will always try to sell what is in your warehouse the longest instead of showing the newest trends or collections said suchi mukherjee founder and ceo limeroad adding that the social platform is on track to reach the rs 100 crore revenue mark in one year mukherjee said that in womens apparel there are a few recognized brands that have national reach to showcase the diversity in a profitable manner the marketplace model is more feasible than inventory experts however say that if not managed well the marketplace model can confuse shoppers too the downside of this marketplace is that consumers get very confused when you have hundreds and thousands of merchandise and brands to choose from technopaks singhal said retailers agree the concern with marketplace is ensuring that customer experience is not compromised said praveen sinha managing director of germanys rocket internetbacked jabong abong which generates sales of around 30 million per month gets more than 35 of its sales from the marketplace by aditi shrivastava et bureau published on sep 17 2014 at 0652 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons