The rapid adoption of fitness wear by an increasing number of Indian consumers is seeing a number of companies enter the sports and fitness wear segment. The latest entrant is Walmart-owned e-commerce company Flipkart, which announced this week that it has rolled out its own, in-house sports and fitness wear private label: Adrenex.
“By launching Adrenex, we are looking to better serve Indians who are becoming increasingly health and fitness conscious, but may not have access to good quality equipment,” said Adarsh K Menon, vice president, private brands, electronics and furniture at Flipkart in a statement.
The launch expands its already impressive portfolio of in-house brands, ranging from electronics to furniture. According to analysts, this is primarily due to the better margins provided by in-house private labels in a scenario where most e-commerce players are trying to improve margins. A private label is essentially an in-house brand designed, produced and marketed by Flipkart itself.
“Such brands result in significant cost advantages, since everything is done by the company itself. If a platform has the capabilities and resources, in-house brands can be quite lucrative,” said an industry analyst. Flipkart will look to tap into the high-growth sports and fitness segment will Adrenex, under which label it will sell sports gear like bats and racquets, footballs, volleyballs, gym accessories like yoga mats, waters zippers, clinchers and dumbbells.
“The launch of Adrenex by Flipkart comes at a pivotal time for the sport & fitness industry in India, which estimates suggest will be valued at $5.6 billion by 2023 from the current $3.3 billion,” Flipkart said in a statement.The company plans to add more products to its portfolio soon, including treadmills, cycles and a selection of home gym equipment.According to the company, Adrenex had first been rolled out just ahead of last year’s Big Billion Day sale, and the label has already registered three-fold growth over the period.
Adrenex is not the first such venture by Flipkart, which has been adding to its private label kitty since as early as 2017 when it launched an appliances brand called MarQ, smartphone brand Billion and consumer electronics brand Smart Buy. In the time since, Billion has been repositioned as a personal care and home utilities brand, but Flipkart has launched even more private labels all through 2018, including Miss & Chef (kids clothing and toys), Perfect Homes (furniture) and Cara Mia and Ann Springs (women fashion and accessories).