Myntra CEO Says App-Only Strategy Working

During the five-day sale period, which ended on October 17, our GMV (gross merchandise volume) increased 3.6 times and the app traffic increased by five to seven times.

 

After moving to app-only, there was a ten per cent drop in sales, which we expected. But, now we are bigger than what we were pre-app only. Currently, our GMV is at $500 million which is 60 cent more than what it was before. With this growth, we hope to cross $1 billion by 2016 and we think in 18 months from now we will be profitable.

 

The focus will be on four things: first will be on getting the best selection of national and international brands. Then we are working to introduce features to make shopping a social experience. For instance, consumers will be able to share the images on social media or experts will give advice and share feedback. So, storytelling will become an important part of the app. These product features will be launched by the end of October. We will create and expand our own private brands. Lastly, we will concentrate on the ability to distribute and reach our consumer much faster. This is one differentiating factor that online brands enjoy over offline brands if they do this well as they can then scale much faster than offline brands.

 

Well, we don't call them labels, they are brands. The reason for that is very important. Brands get more premium, they stand for something that lasts longer than a season and are targeted at a particular customer segment. Labels are generally introduced to fill in a need for that particular season.

 

Twenty per cent of our revenue comes from these private fashion brands. Some of the popular ones are HRX with Hrithik Roshan and WROGN with Virat Kohli. We hope to keep it at 20-25 per cent. My sense is that our new brand, All About You will be $100 million in two years.

 

We want 3-4 such private brands to enter the top 10 national brands in India. For that we will launch a lot more seasons, lines and you will see a lot of action in this segment. The focus on private brands is a part of our strategy to achieve profitability in the next 18 months.

 

It is important over a period of time to rationalise these discounts. Providing right value product to the consumer, and not discounts, will eventually lead to margins and profitability. So, we will continue to focus on relevant in-season merchandise and better value proposition for the consumer.