The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 35 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Narayanan: Myntra ad experiments showed higher click-through rates for fair-skinned models
“And we ran an experiment where you actually look at click through rates long time ago, and you find that the click through rates are actually different. So purely economically, the click through rates on performance marketing were higher.”
Narayanan: Target Revenue Multiples Are 5x in Fashion and 6x-7x in Beauty
“My sense is, I think a five X would be interesting. Five X on fashion would be interesting beauty. I think between four and six, no, actually maybe six, seven. I think. Food will be probably lower. Will be three, four.”
Narayanan: In-content click-to-buy video commerce will remain a tiny percentage of sales
“I mean, you know, never say never, but my sense is, I think that will still be a very small percent because I think human beings are still human beings, right? But now or later, and I think, by the way, if you're watching something on content, right, you're tr…”
Narayanan: Consumers will almost never pay a price premium for sustainable products
“Will somebody pay premium for it because it costs more to get to be sustainable? The answer is almost always no. If the answer to that is no, there's no economic model. So I think should one do it and be responsible? The answer is yes. Is it a selling factor f…”
Narayanan: ONDC adds value to brands but will not replace platforms
“I do think ONDC can add value to brands.
I'm not sure there are replacement to platforms.”
Narayanan: Private brands grew to 30% of sales, driving Myntra's profitability
“And the private brand business of Myntra at the same time also went from seven, eight percent to call it almost 30%, which is what drove profitability. So we were among the most profitable pieces of the Flipkart ecosystem, not amongst, we were the most profita…”
Ananth Narayanan: Instagram Shopping has not taken off in any meaningful way globally
“Insta shopping hasn't really taken off globally, right? In any meaningful manner. I mean, at the Instagram level, I'm saying.”
Narayanan: Ideal 0-20 crore revenue mix is 80% marketplaces, 20% D2C
“I think from the zero to 20 crores, if you can keep an 80 20%, where 80% is e-commerce platforms, and 20% is DTC, it's a great mix. Because then you have enough consumer data, but you also have reach, right, that you can actually get to.”
Narayanan: Focusing 100% on D2C Early Causes Brands to Bleed Cash
“If you focus a hundred percent on DTC, for example, I think you can represent the brand, but you'll end up bleeding money, which means by the way, you'll have to raise money much sooner.”
Narayanan: Scaling on Myntra requires frequent drops to trigger freshness algorithms
“Myntra values freshness. Fresh stock. So new styles coming on all the time. Therefore, if you want to make Myntra your primary platform, you basically have to introduce more frequent drops and you have to get tagged to what's new.”
Narayanan: Scaling brands to 500 crores requires offline retail and organic pull
“A hundred and above to 500, you have to figure out how to make offline work, which is a different skill set for a lot of people who have started it this way. You have to figure out and really make sure that the product goes from push to pull.”
Narayanan: Performance-driven sales must drop to 30% beyond 100 crores revenue
“That percent from 20 to a hundred, maybe call it fifty-fifty performance and organic. Hundred plus that performance based sales should come down to 30%. Because if it doesn't, 30, 40%, it doesn't, it just, the cost of it keeps going up and up and up and up and…”
Narayanan: Legacy FMCG giants have caught up digitally, hurting D2C startups
“If you asked me three, four years ago, I would say most of the big players were not digitally very good. So you could actually still create some scale online and then figure out a way to see if that was enough. I don't think that's true anymore. I think all of…”
Narayanan: E-commerce algorithms reward brand catalog width over inventory depth
“In general, online values width more than depth. The reason is purely algorithmic. What happens is you have 600,000 SKUs in a Myntra. Number of SKUs that are tagged to a same brand name is one weightage in an algorithm that basically then says you're a large b…”
Narayanan: Machine learning adds 2 to 4 percentage points to fashion margins
“Is it possible to use machine learning to reduce inventory and reduce wastage? The answer is absolutely. And I think it's differentiated enough that if you build this as a real capability, you know, you get two, three, four percentage points more. That I think…”
Narayanan: E-commerce purchase volumes drop precipitously above 5,000 rupees
“It is true that beyond 5000,
The volumes drop precipitously.”
Narayanan: Premium sneaker brands priced above 20,000 rupees should launch offline
“I would not do it. I mean, I would not do it.
You go offline.”
Narayanan: 60% of the Indian Fashion Market Remains Unorganized
“I would say by the way, 60% is still disorganized, right? I think ready to stitch is still a very large segment. Most of ethnic, which is a very large portion of fashion is still unorganized.”
Narayanan: Branded Retail in India Is Growing 2x to 3x Faster Than GDP
“The overall market is growing a little bit over GDP. Branded is growing two, three X faster because unbranded to branded is happening. And online, by the way, will grow faster.”
Narayanan: Launch new products where high marketplace search volumes yield no results
“And that's a very good way to sort of figure out where are the null sets. So what people look for is where are people searching and not finding anything? And that's what you start launching, right?”
Narayanan: New brands should dominate small niches rather than fight incumbents
“If you start something new, my sense is, I think, being a shark in a pond, Is always better than doing something else. I don't know whether that's distribution or a niche, right? If you want to launch an ethnic, I wouldn't go against the big guys.”
Narayanan: India's market for quiet luxury remains very small
“My sense is I think the market in India for, I think we're not yet evolved to a stage of restrained capitalism where you don't want to actually demonstrate that you bought something expensive. I think that market is very, very, very small.”
Narayanan: Only the first six screen swipes matter in mobile e-commerce
“In the online world, the first six swipes on a mobile phone are the only thing that matter. After that, by the way, your attention span, you know, you never get reach, right?”
Ananth Narayanan: Securing initial 100 reviews is critical for Amazon ranking
“Amazon values consumer reviews and ratings. Yeah. So getting the first hundred reviews and ratings, right. Through customers, through friends, through family, or legitimately, there's an Amazon wine program that you can do. All of that actually matters the mos…”
Narayanan: The Indian pet care market is going to explode
“I think pets is the other big one in mind. It's immediate and people are spending. ... And they spend on the dog or the cat as much as they spend on their baby, right? I mean, or child, but I think this is an interesting space. There's a market and I think it'…”
Narayanan: Premium pricing works within a narrow band, not at 5x markups
“So there's a band for every one of these within that band. I think premium people think it is actually you're charging a little bit more. The packaging makes a difference. All of that makes a difference, but I don't know, maybe Kishore, you can comment on it, …”
Narayanan: Growth hacking is digital real estate, not long-term brand compounding
“I'm saying growth hacking is the new way of getting a great space in a mall, right? The analogy, right? I think here on brand building, I think this consistency point is important. You have to be known for something that compounds over time, right?”
Narayanan: More than 30% of online fashion orders are returned
“30 plus percent of products in fashion get returned.”
Narayanan: Consumers want provenance, creating opportunities for Indian luxury brands
“No, no, I think Indian luxury, I don't mean ethnic, right? I think there's an opportunity for handcrafting for luxury, ah, I think across a range of categories. I think, ah, you know, five years ago, seven years ago, I would have said no, but I think now there…”
Narayanan: Pet accessories present a 10-year growth runway with high gross margins
“I would do accessories for pets as opposed to food, I think. Leashes, pet cleaning, pet grooming. I think it's a market with high gross margins. You can create differentiated products. I think it's a 10 year sort of growth story.”
Narayanan: Indian athleisure brands can succeed by tailoring fit to Indian bodies
“I actually think Indian body types are different, by the way. So I think if you build an Indian athleisure brand, you can build it for India. You can build the fits right. I think the fabric technology, I mean, Kishore knows this better, but I think it's widel…”
Narayanan: Pan-India brand delivery costs 140 to 150 rupees per parcel
“Call it for one 41 50 rupees. Maybe the rate has changed slightly, but one 41 50 rupees, you can get to 23,000 pin codes or 26,000.”
Narayanan: Fashion Brands Average 55-60% Gross Margins, Beauty Averages 70-80%
“50, 60% gross margin, right? In, in beauty, of course, it's higher, but in fashion, at least 55, 60. In beauty, 70, 80.”
Narayanan: BNPL is among fastest growing options in e-commerce
“BNPL is among the fastest growing in all e-commerce firms.”
Ananth Narayanan: Amazon is search-led while Myntra and Ajio are visibility-led
“There are two types of platforms. One is you go search for something and you get to a product. The other is you go browse for something and you get inspired to a product. So that's visibility-led. The other is search-led. Amazon is search-led. Myntra and AGO a…”