Last week IOS reported how etailers Flipkart, Pepperfry, Firstcry and Zivame are opening offline stores to enhance shopping experience. The latest ecommerce player to join the list is Myntra.
Fashion etailer Myntra announced that in the next 12-18 months it wishes to open offline experience zones.
Without revealing much, Myntra’s CEO Ananth Narayanan said to ET, “We don’t have any immediate plans, but I think next year we will do it. This is something we are debating on.”
These stores that bridge the gap between online and offline will give customers the ‘touch-and-feel experience’. The move highlights that Myntra hopes to reach target customers at every touch-point possible to maximize its revenue.
Parent company of Myntra, ecommerce biggie Flipkart leaves no chance to state that m-commerce is the future of ecommerce in India. The online marketplace that has a desktop site as of now unlike Myntra, believes mobile-only makes sense.
In Myntra’s annual conference, Flipkart’s co-founder and CEO Sachin Bansal asserted, “The regulators, the Prime Minister and everybody else are looking at mobile. The payment innovations are also mobile-centric. Some 100 million smartphones are being sold every year in India, even as desktop/laptop sales are declining. It clearly makes more sense to think mobile.”
Head-honchos of app-only Myntra are confident that it will cross $1 billion GMV by 2016 while making profits.
Narayanan revealed, “Overall, I think we are on a great trajectory, we are roughly at about $500 million in GMV as of today. We are growing between 60-70 per cent month-on-month. We will try and get to a billion dollar GMV in 2016.”
The company that has 1,700 leading fashion and lifestyle brands on its platform claimed that its app-only strategy is working as the number of active monthly users, repeat customers and positive consumer feedback has only increased with time.
Narayanan said, “Our monthly active users is roughly about 7.6 million; our repeat rate is highest in the industry – we are now at 80 per cent. Our app only strategy is working – if you just look at the repeat consumers, if you look at the lifetime value of the consumer and how happy they are – all of that are actually working. Consumer centricity stand point is a big focus area for us. One other focus area in consumer centricity is we have something called Net Promoter Score which is NPS, our goal is to be consistently ten points NPS higher than any other player.”
While Flipkart feels mobile-only works, etailers are also taking the traditional route by opening up offline stores. Does that mean mobile and brick-and-mortar retail are here to stay and not desktop sites?
And what do consumers feel about this mobile-centric attitude? Pretty much the same what they felt 8 months ago when Myntra transitioned into app-only. A user Yog Mishra left a comment below Sachin Bansal’s ‘mobile-only makes sense’ declaration, “Depending just on one technology may limit ur market mr bansal. Plz, keep the desktop version alive. (sic)” Another user K.R. Menon said, “I suggest you let the customer decide whether to buy on the desktop or mobile platform. I for one have already uninstalled the Flipkart app from my mobile.”
We wonder what Flipkart founder has to say about that. Are they even listening to such customers? Mr. Bansal, over to you.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
Leave a Comment
