Myntra’s pilot programme to help drive offline sales of brands

Leading e-tailer Myntra has decided to pilot a programme which would help large brands drive their offline sales through a multi-channel. This would help to provide an integrated shopping experience. It will try to leverage its smartphone app user base of 7.6 million to drive sales for large brands.

Large international brands contribute 5 percent while private label’s share 20 percent to Myntra’s revenues. A high repeat customer rate of 80-85 percent is reported by the company. In the next 18 months, the firm plans to double the share of international brands while its own share by 30 percent, thus generating higher margins.

Myntra’s CEO Ananth Narayanan plans to leverage the inventory of major international brands or the consumer experience that is there in the stores where the traffic can be directed. Omni-channels, believe many in the industry, is a good idea as it will educate consumers about e-commerce. More such omni-channels should be encouraged. Under this initiative, online retailers offer offline experience centres or vice versa. At the experience centres, customers can come, touch and test the products that they want to buy, which will be later delivered to them.

Many Indian retailers have started looking at an omni-channel approach. Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, which is part of Aditya Birla Nuvo, launched its digitally integrated store in Bangalore, Reliance is a working on a fashion e-commerce portal while Snapdeal’s omni-channel platform, Janus, lets customers discover, purchase or even return products to a physical store.