Online fashion retailer, Myntra to replace website with mobile app

Online fashion retailer, Myntra is reported to be planning shut down its online retail site myntra.com from next month. However, the e-commerce company will not exit the market as it planned to continue operations where it would offer products for sale through its mobile application only.

Though the company had not officially disclosed the new developments, The Times of India. The publication had also reported in February the possibility of the online retailer phasing out its web presence this year. The report said 1 May was when access to the site would be taken offline.

If this weree to happen, it would be the first instance of an e-commerce website shifting to a mobile-only app-based approach. According to the report, parent company, Flipkart, which acquired Myntra around a year back, was also likely to adopt the same strategy depending on how the myntra app fared.

Meanwhile, India Today reported on its web edition that most online shoppers it spoke to said they found it more comfortable to browse the website compared to the app.

According to the report, Myntra was probably moving to an app-only model as it was possible that it got a lot of shoppers who accessed it through mobile apps in Tier 2 or tier 3 cities where wired internet connections and Wi-Fi were virtually non-existent.

It added that  shoppers in Delhi believe it was a wrong move on the part of the retailer as it was easier to  return and exchange products through the website and was more easily done on desktop, since the bandwidth of the app was limited in terms of opening multiple tabs and viewing a series of items in different windows was cumbersome.

Logging into the website was also seen to be more efficient than downloading the app.

However, according to the e-commerce portals  the major chunk of the growth was coming from mobile in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

SnapDeal's Rohit Bansal last year claimed that in certain cases 80 per cent of the business was coming from these small cities driven by mobile.

"Mobile is the way for e-commerce, in fact we believe India is a m-commerce market, not an e-commerce market. In tier 2 and tier 3 cities mobile is driving growth, and in some cases 80 per cent of our business is coming from these markets," claimed Bansal last year when Google and Forrester Research jointly drafted a report on the state of e-commerce in the country.