How Myntra’s Rising STARS programme will help emerging D2C brands scale

Myntra, one of India’s leading fashion, beauty, and lifestyle platforms, recently launched Myntra Rising STARS, a one-of-its-kind comprehensive programme dedicated towards strengthening the D2C ecosystem in the country.

Through this program, Myntra aims to help the onboarded D2C brands unlock their growth potential. As an equal partner in this journey, Myntra will provide full funnel support focusing on building awareness, driving consideration and conversations. YourStory spoke to Sharon Pais, CBO, Myntra, to know more about Myntra Rising STARS and how the programme helps D2C brands. 

Edited excerpts from the interview:

YourStory (YS): What was the idea behind launching Myntra’s Rising STARS?

Sharon Pais (SP): India's D2C landscape has immense potential for growth and considering the numerous fashion brands that have emerged in the last two years, digital-first brands will play a crucial role in revolutionising how fashion is consumed going forward. The fashion D2C market by itself is estimated to reach $43.2 billion in India by 2025, due to the rise in digital penetration fuelling the growing popularity of digital-first businesses.

With such immense potential and as one of the leading fashion, beauty, and lifestyle platforms of the country, we wanted to offer a dedicated and focused programme, giving an opportunity to brands in this ecosystem to attain their true potential, while serving the evolving fashion needs of the country. This was the genesis of the Rising STARS programme, which aims to bring D2C brands with differentiated offerings to the fore. We want to enhance their brand salience, aid in the accelerated growth of these brands, and help them scale. The one-of-a-kind comprehensive programme is dedicated to strengthening the D2C ecosystem in India and we are excited to see how it unlocks the growth potential of brands.

YS: How many brands are you looking to onboard?

SP: We are looking at onboarding around 200 brands in the next four months. We are also keen to cater to as many brands as possible, and are geared to propel the growth journey of fashion and lifestyle brands with unique propositions to cater to the constantly changing demands of fashion-forward shoppers.

YS: What criteria do the brands need to meet?

SP: Our effort has been to create a proposition suitable to both renowned and emerging D2C made-in-India brands, with unique offerings for customers. We are looking at shortlisting brands based on pre-decided objective criteria, that will include the size of the brand, brand salience through social media followership, and uniqueness of the product proposition among others.

YS: How will the programme help brands solve for growth?

SP: Despite significant investments, the biggest challenge faced by some of the brands is attaining scale, both in terms of revenue and brand salience.

Our endeavour, through Myntra Rising STARS, will be to help them leverage our scale, and expertise in brand building and compelling storytelling both on and off platform. The programme will provide brands access to differentiated customer experience and a host of services at an optimised cost, eventually building awareness, driving consideration, and creating conversions to help these brands scale and become successful.

YS: What services will be offered to brands as part of the programme?

SP: Onboarded brands will be able to opt for fee-based dedicated strategic account management services and get access to insights and a host of services aimed at scaling the brand on numbers and salience. These brands will also be able to access segment-based incentive structure, working capital support, a faster repayment cycle, and Myntra’s speed proposition, M-Express, for an enhanced and delightful customer experience. By signing up for this programme, they will also be able to communicate their stories and persona in an engaging way, strengthening their brand salience and identity.

Our recently launched Myntra Rising STARS store, with dedicated touch points across the home and category pages, will amplify visibility for the portfolio. We will constantly endeavour to build capabilities to enhance brand engagement with our discerning and evolving Myntra customers. The brands will also be able to leverage their social, celebrity, and influencer assets better by collaborating with us across on and off-platform campaigns. Brands can look at enhancing their reach and amplifying engagements, especially around new launches, collections, and trends.  

YS: Tell us about the Rising STARS store?

SP: The Rising STARS store on the Myntra app is a one-stop destination for D2C fashion and lifestyle brands. We will have an extensive collection of over three lakh styles as a part of the launch, across brands like Neemans, Suta, Rare Rabbit, BlissClub, Fablestreet, The Souled Store, and Bewakoof, among others. Our aim is to showcase the richness and versatility of these brands through engaging and compelling storytelling. It will be our endeavour to bring out the uniqueness of this portfolio by enhancing product capabilities and building engaging customer journeys through Myntra minis, videos, and the like.

YS: What advantage does the Rising STARS programme offer shoppers?

SP: With consumer choices evolving continuously, it will allow for easy discovery of differentiated offerings from the brands so shoppers can stay on top of trends.

We will equip brands with significantly better visibility on the platform, allowing them to exponentially increase brand awareness. We will also help drive consideration via enhanced and immersive product discovery, via our tech-enabled consumer journey.

Our expertise will help brands optimise inventory and cater to specific customer demands. Our best-in-class customer experience will provide an edge, with propositions like the M-Express that have changed the game in the fashion ecommerce space. 

YS: Is the Rising STARS programme targeting any particular industry sectors or product categories?

SP: The Rising STARS programme will nurture brands across the fashion and lifestyle spectrum. D2C brands tend to occupy niches while catering to evolving consumer need gaps, thus allowing them to have differentiated product offerings. The agility of these brands to innovate helps them to stay on top of trends and technology for evolving digital customers.

Brands keen on being onboarded to the programme can enroll here.