Come May 1 and we will see online fashion retailer Myntra shutting down its website and becoming only a mobile app based retailer. This would be the first such instance when an e-commerce player is becoming a mobile app based retailer. Myntra which draws 80 per cent of its traffic and 70 per cent of sales from its mobile app is looking forward to capitalise on the surge in the internet usage over smartphones in India. According to sources Flipkart which acquired Myntra a year ago would also follow suit if this move works well. Flipkart also registers more than 60 per cent of its sales through its mobile app.
Once the migration to mobile app is complete, Myntra would be doing a 360 degree marketing campaing to announce its app only presence. As the online shopper penetration is exceeding with the figures going to touch 36 per cent by 2020 more and more e-tailers are looking to tap the mobile app space. Recently Snapdeal was in news about contemplating such a move. According to a report by Morgan Stanley, there is an increasing tendency of customers sticking onto a app once it has been downloaded. The report also says that customers generally visit that wesite before visiting any other site before shopping.
More and more E-tailers in recent years to gain traction in the online space have been pushing offers exclusively on their apps with the aim of getting consumers on to the platform. Google seeing this move of more and more people accessing web through mobiles is planning to come with a search engine update which would be more friendly for websites which have a mobile version.
