In a few months shoppers using fashion e-tailer Myntra’s mobile application will be able to interact with an artificial intelligence powered chat-based personal shopping assistant which will hand-hold the consumer through the browsing session. “In the past three months, 80% of our growth has come from mobile,” said Mukesh Bansal, cofounder of Myntra. “We are completely realigning our company to a mobile-first strategy.”
About a quarter of the company’s sales are now coming from mobile users and by the end of the year this is expected to increase to 40%.
This shift is happening at a time when Myntra is in advanced negotiations with online retailer Flipkart. The talks which began as a way to forge a commercial partnership between the two portals has now moved to talk of a possible acquisition of Myntra by Flipkart, according to multiple sources. Bansal declined to confirm any of these details. Flipkart also declined to comment on “market speculations.”
Myntra’s chief technology and product officer Shamik Sharma said the company is set to launch its android and iOS apps in the next few weeks. “The rumours (of Myntra-Flipkart deal) notwithstanding, it is business as usual for us. The focus for every employee is the mobile transition,” said Sharma.Myntra expects to clock sales of Rs 1,800 crore this fiscal and over Rs 6,000 crore in early 2016. Bansal said 30% of every investment is being set aside for mobile. For instance, the company has a marketing budget of Rs 200 crore for the fiscal and of this Rs 60 crore is for mobile marketing.
Industry experts said the growth of mobile shopping is a global phenomenon. A report last year by analytics firm comScore showed that over 35% of consumers visiting the top 50 ecommerce sites were accessing them only through mobile devices.
“In the future shopping is going to be anytime, anywhere and that can be done only on a mobile device,” said Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail advisory firm Technopak. “Every brand needs to optimise their offering for mobile.”
Other ecommerce sites in India are also seeing high growth from mobile. “Firms that make the transition towards mobile commerce will be the successful ones in online retail,” Flipkart’s cofounder Sachin Bansal had said in a conversation with ET in January.
Technopak’s Singhal said ecommerce companies will have to solve challenges around user experience on mobile.
“The screen size is extremely limited and sites cannot give 50 product options on this small screen. They will have to make navigation easier and more predictive,” he said.