Chaitanya Gudipatymoneycontrol.comNearly an year after Myntra switched to app-only sales model, the Flipkart-owned company will revert to desktop site by June 1. Myntra has acknowledged that its mobile-only strategy has backfired and hasn’t given the results it desired.
Ananth Narayanan, Myntra's CEO said the desktop roll-out is being implemented to ensure that customers have a choice. "It was a bold experiment, but all such moves are not right and we accept that. There is a segment of Indian consumers which is looking to make purchases over desktops and we wanted to give them the choice,” Narayanan told TOI.
Narayanan, however, didn’t write off the switch asserting that the app had gained from the intended desktop-to-mobile transition. He said that the Myntra app now has additional features and consumer-friendly interface than it had earlier.
Flipkart, the country’s largest ecommerce retailer, had implemented the app-only model as more than two-thirds of the fashion etailer’s sales came through mobile apps.
Documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) show that when Myntra folded up its web operations, it was drawing about 80 percent of its traffic and 70 percent of sales from its mobile app. The fashion etailer clocked a revenue of Rs 758 crore in FY15 against losses of around Rs 740 crore.
Though many customers browse ecommerce portals through their smartphones, not many transact through ecommerce apps. This was quite evident as Myntra was forced to bring back mobile website in February, after a pilot in last December.
Even Flipkart had shut its mobile website last year and had planned to opt for app-only strategy, but after seeing the response for Myntra, it decided against it.
Impact:
The failure of Myntra’s move means that consumers would still want to make purchases on desktop sites. A wave of startups which have app-only models will be forced to rethink their strategies. The increasing penetration of smartphones hasn’t successfully ensures that sales take place on such hand-held gadgets or apps.
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