Myntra Takes A U-Turn: No More 'App Only'

Fashion and lifestyle ecommerce player, Myntra, has re-launched its mobile website in a bid to avoid missing out on customers. The move is aimed at first-time web users, who do not use its mobile app.

This re-launch comes nine months after the e-retailer went app only. The portal had decided on 15th May, 2015 to go app-only, shutting down its mobile and desktop site citing the reason, that it was generating more than 90% of its traffic and 70% of sales through its mobile app.

Similar plans were announced by parent Flipkart, in September last year, citing that over 70-75% of its total traffic was already coming from our mobile app. But later, the ecommerce giant put a brake on its app only plans. Inc42 reported in November that Myntra would follow the footsteps of its parent, Flipkart, and was planning to re-launch its mobile site.

The penetration of mobile phones is expected to reach 45% with 520 Mn users by 2020, and this was one of the strong reasons for Myntra to go only mobile only. Therefore, the consumers who did not have the mobile app were redirected to a link to download it. This marked as a dead-end for a potential customer because a user would not go through the hassle of downloading an app to make a purchase.

At the time of its annual sale last month, the company allowed users to browse its entire catalogue on its mobile site. As per Ambarish Kenghe, head of products at Myntra, the company got reasonable data that many people were using the mobile site and therefore they are reopening it. He further added “But this is not a revenue-related decision. We want to give customers an additional reason to use Myntra. This move will eventually result in more app installs.”

The company will stick to mobile-only approach for now, and has no plans to re-launch its desktop site.

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