mumbai attracted by the ecommerce story raymond the 89yearold mens textile and apparel maker is making a big bang entry into the etail domain and is coming up with a fullfledged virtual platform that will include mobile apps for this initiative raymonds flamboyant chairman gautam singhania has brought on board vijay basrur a digital specialist who has had stints with startups like quikr and bazeecom housed within raymond the venture titled raymondnextcom will bring all the companys brands including raymond park avenue colorplus and parx and products spread across textile apparel home furnishing and personal care accessories under this platform a top raymond official told toi moreover for those men who are particular about their outfit fits and style raymondnextcom will also allow them to design and customize attire the 750million raymond joins the expanding list of decadeold textile and apparel brand houses like arvind and bombay dyeing which are betting on ecommerce to drive sales while raymonds brands and product range like other apparel makers are available on thirdparty online channels like myntra and jabong the move to have its own ecommerce platform is to replicate the exclusive brickandmortar store experience on the internet and to use its physical retail strength of being present in over 1000 outlets across the country to deliver products directly at the shoppers doorstep we recognize ecommerce as an important platform to reach out to our consumers basrur said etail is fast emerging as an alternate commercial channel amongst a rapidly evolving netizen base in the country and raymond wants to be a part of this raymond is investing rs 20 crore to develop the ecommerce venture and has put in place a separate team at present etail is a small contributor to the companys revenues but the mumbaibased flagship of gautam singhania group expects the online channels share to increase in the future according to industry estimates the etail market fuelled by a growing internet user base convenience and free home delivery will grow from 23 billion in 2014 to 32 billion by 2020 with apparel comprising the biggest segment the astronomical growth of online fashion was augmented recently when flipkart bought myntra in a deal worth over 300 million just like in physical retail where companies use different formats like exclusive showrooms and multibrand outlets for their products in the online space too a similar approach is followedusing thirdparty portals and having their own websites an industry observer said