I tried shopping on Myntra last year. While they had an impressive enough catalogue of fashion and accessories, my experience as a user was painful and disastrous. The site was slow to ‘add to cart’, slower to proceed to the payments page and absolutely refusing to take my money. I’m not the one to get annoyed easily with inefficient websites, but this was the pits. I gave up.
A few months later I heard that Flipkart was acquiring Myntra, supposedly the biggest consolidation in the e-commerce space in India, the deal valued roughly at Rs. 2,000 crore. From a business point of view, this made sense.
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May 2015: Myntra shuts mobile site. Flipkart to follow suit.
I thought to myself, surely think is a link bait. Why would a company do that? Turns out, Flipkart was serious about it. The company claims 95 percent of internet traffic on Myntra comes through mobile, and 70 percent sales are generated through smartphones. A recent report from Morgan Stanley suggests that online shopper penetration in India will increase from 9 percent in 2013 to 36 percent by 2020, primarily led by mobile users. The e-commerce market in India is also expected to rise from $5 billion in 2015 to over $130 billion by 2025. This is the space where Flipkart and Myntra are hoping to make the first-mover advantage count.
Why Flipkart (and Myntra) got it all wrong
Is it a wise decision?
In my humble opinion: No. Here’s why:
- Only one of us can exist – Said no platform ever. Apps, mobile sites and desktop sites do not need to be mutually exclusive. They can, and should, co-exist. Choosing a platform to access the service should be the privilege of a consumer, not the seller.
Source: - Not everyone owns a smartphone – While it may seem that technology has engulfed our minds and made all of us zombies, there is still time, at least in India. Although India is the third largest smartphone market in the world after China and the United States and mobile Internet being touted as the next thing, Internet speeds are still a matter of concern. Only 25% of Indians have smartphones currently.
Source: - Is that dress white and gold or blue and black? - It was hard enough to answer that question on our HD Screen laptops. Imagine a poor user trying to do that on his/her not so premium smartphone. Whether he accesses it through the app or the mobile web browser is caveat number 2. Most smartphones either downsize or decrease the resolution of the image. Fashion products are all about how the commodity looks; and basis its visual appeal, will they choose to buy it. For this reason, a significant number of people still prefer to use their (relatively) bigger laptop screens before making a purchase.
Source: The whole damned internet
- Smartphones are the future – Yes, but they are the future for a reason. Over 60 per cent mobile users in India are facing network problems while accessing internet across locations, a recent Ericsson study revealed. Customers, who prefer online shopping on PCs/laptops over mobile, could move to other e-commerce sites. Smartphones are definitely the future, but desktops are much more comfortable. Users can open multiple tabs to compare and have an option of zooming the product better, which wouldn’t be as appealing on a small screen. Mobile shopping is great on-the-go, but not everyone is always shopping while travelling.
Source: - The odd one out – If other people are not following suit, you’ve probably put your money on oddity, not a trend. The Amazons and SnapDeals of the world have refused to follow suit, preferring to give their customers the choice of where to access their catalogue of products and services. In conversation with Economic Times, a Snapdeal spokesperson said, “Our data shows that there are still many customers who use PCs to shop online. We do not want to force our customers to use one specific medium to shop on Snapdeal.” Customer Experience Head at Amazon India said, “We believe that as a consumer-obsessed company, we have to enable our customers to shop anytime, anywhere, and anyway they want.
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It was not a secret that Myntra’s site was struggling. Yes, 90 percent of their traffic was mobile only, and yes it seems that everyone is doing everything on their mobiles. But the above points explain exactly why it makes sense not to limit a user on the basis of what the company thinks is right; this should be the user’s privilege.
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