Fashion e-portal Myntra relaunches desktop website

Flipkart-owned fashion firm Myntra has relaunched its desktop website. After going app-only in May 2015, the e-tailer is back to where it started, that is on the computer. It had said that the switch would happen on June 1 but it actually happened a few days before the appointed date.

The switch happens at a time when the company undergoes top-level management shakeup. Mukesh Bansal, Founder, and Punit Soni, Chief Product Oofficer, who were thought to have played key roles in Myntra’s app-only strategy, left the company this year.

It is being hoped that the relaunch site would help in boosting revenues. The company is expecting to see sales grow by up to 20 per cent with this relaunch. The relaunched website has a number of new categories such as home furnishings and fine jewellery where customers may want to see the products on a larger screen.

Flipkart and Myntra are not the only ecommerce sites to have got their users to switch to apps. Earlier MakeMyTrip, Ola, Uber and BookMyShow have tried with this strategy. The reason why it has been done is that an app offers them better control over users. This is possible because an app gets far more attention from a user. The interoperability between different apps arguably makes the process of purchasing a product and keeping track of its imminent status from frictionless. But people in India are yet to take readily to apps and this explains why companies have to return to websites.