Former co-founder of Fashionara.com Arun Sirdeshmukh has been hired by Amazon India to head its fashion portfolio. The position has been vacant since September last year when Vikas Purohit quit Amazon.
According to a statement made by an Amazon official: Fashion has been one of the fastest growing categories in India for Amazon, the company said. In the first quarter of 2016, unit sales of fashion products soared 200 per cent over that in the previous year while its fashion and lifestyle selection grew three times over the past six months to 15,000 local and global brands offering more than two million products.
Sirdeshmukh began his stint at Amazon last Tuesday, just a few weeks after Fashionara.com shut shop due to dwindling business and a severe cash crunch. As of May 27, its website and app were no longer accessible.
According to information available with VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle, Fashionara’s net sales jumped five-fold to Rs 32.86 crore in the financial year 2014-15. But its net loss widened to Rs 32.13 crore from Rs 21.11 crore in 2013-14, according to VCCEdge data, based on Fashionara’s filings to the Registrar of Companies.
Sirdeshmukh’s Story
Before he turned entrepreneur with Fashionara.com, Sirdeshmukh held the plum position of CEO at Reliance Trends, Reliance Retail’s fashion and lifestyle arm.
An alumnus of IIM (Kolkata), Sirdeshmukh (who was also the director – merchandising, creative content & operations at Fashionara), started his career at Madura Garments in 1990 where he spent eight years before moving to IBM Global Services for a short stint.
He then moved on to Indus League Clothing where he was the marketing head. Indus League was acquired by Future Group in 2005.
Sirdeshmukh had founded online fashion and lifestyle store Fashionara.com with former Times Internet Limited CEO, Darpan Munjal in 2012.
The startup managed to raise $4 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners in the same year.
Munjal too quit Fashionara.com in January of this year, according to his LinkedIn profile.
