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The India-based company wants to cater to consumers who still need a desktop site
Fashion e-tailer Myntra, which was acquired by India e-commerce portal Flipkart for US$340 million in 2014, has announced that it will relaunch its desktop site this June.
The move comes almost a year after the Indian-based startup decided to shift to an app-only model, spurred by the boom in smartphone usage – almost 95 per cent of Myntra’s traffic and over 70 per cent of sales came via mobile devices in 2015.
Myntra CEO Ananth Narayana cited consumers’ needs as the decision by this move. He added that female customers, in particular, want the option to shop via multiple platforms.
“While that is still true that the mobile experience is far superior to the web, we have recognised that some consumers still want the option to shop on the web,” said Narayana in a statement.
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This decision to diversify into home furnishing, precious and non-precious jewellery and personal care segments was also part of the reason. Myntra explained that customers would want to inspect smaller items, such as jewellery, up close.
It is important to note that although Myntra went app-only last year, it did not shut down its desktop site. In fact, during the period when Myntra was focussed on only upgrading the app, its number of desktop users did not fall.
This is not the first time Myntra has done a u-turn . In December 2015, it relaunched its mobile site (which was actually shut down in May 2015)
The strategy to go app-only was panned by many industry experts, including Praveen Sinha, managing director of Rocket Internet-incubated lifestyle e-tailer Jabong who said that such a move could potentially kill off the customer base, and businesses should always provide choices to customers.
Myntra expects the reopening of the desktop site to drive about 15 to 20 per cent of the sales this year.
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Image Credit: Myntra
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