When Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal's co-founder was missed

It was hardly a fair fight with the big boys of offline retail ganging up against the newbie at the India Fashion Forum's panel discussion in Mumbai recently. The topic of conversation: building retail brands in the age of omni channel.

But this quickly descended into an online versus off line debate. At one point, Govind Shrikhande, MD, Shoppers Stop, said that no one had any clue about the profitability model of the online companies. "Nobody has an answer. Not Amit (Maheshwari, head — fashion business, Snapdeal.com, who was also on the panel), not all the Bansals of the world."A not-so-subtle dig at the Flipkart, Snapdeal and Myntra founders.

Kabir Lumba, MD, Lifestyle International, suggested that etailers seemed to be working more for charity than profit. "All the online companies should be granted non-governmental organisation status. They have done more than all government agencies put together."

Maheshwari, the only online retailer on the panel, tried to hold fort against the acerbic comments from his older peers.

As per the original plan, he wasn't even supposed to be on this panel, filling in for his boss, Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal's co-founder. It would have been interesting to see if Bahl had the answers which "all the Bansals can't give". Maybe it would have been a fair fight then.