Myntra is App-Only: Is it Too Early to Predict the Consumer Behaviour?

India’s largest fashion e-retailer, Myntra closed its website on 15^th of May and moved to App-Only platform. Soon after on 20^th May 2015, Economics Times reported a 10% dip in sales for Myntra. Is it a good strategic move by Myntra or is it a pilot project by Flipkart to test the potential of App-Only platform in India? Some argues that there is huge growth potential of m-commerce in Indian market so it is good to forgo profit for growth. And some counter argues that it is wild move by Myntra as the Indian market is still so nascent for App-Only platform. Don’t worry this debate will go on. But in the article we will discuss about the market readiness from the consumer stand point not from the technology stand point. We will look into the consumer behaviour of shopping goods like fashion product. So let’s start.

Before analysing the consumer goods classification, we will look into the Five-Stage Model of the Consumer Buying Process. It is very simple and very much self-explanatory. The figure-1 given below shows it:

Now let’s have a glimpse of the consumer-goods classification:

1)      Convenience Goods: These product are purchased frequently without having much of involvement and shopping effect. Products like grocery items, magazines, newspapers, chips, chocolates, soft drinks, ice cream and staple food items etc. come in this category. These are mainly non-durable and the brand switching is very high because consumer seeks convenience and availability of product. And the consumer doesn't plan to purchase these kind products, takes instant decision to purchase these products so spends very little time in each of the step in the buying process.

2)      Shopping Goods: If we think about products like furniture’s, apparels (fashion goods) etc. these come under shopping goods. Where the consumer spends comparatively more time in each step of buying process than the convenience products. He tends to compare the products based on their variety, suitability, quality and price etc. Moreover he takes much more involved and planed decision, and engages in high to extensive information search prior to the purchase. Brand switching is not very high in these types of purchase.

3)      Specialty Goods: In the third category, the consumer incur special purchasing effort as the money involved in this type of purchase decision is very high. So he spends a lot of time in information search, excavation of alternative and also during purchase decision. Luxury products, automobile, antiques, purchasing house etc. come in this type of products.

So Myntra is dealing with fashion products and they belong to the shopping goods. I just want to highlight one point here in shopping goods- “Consumers compare the products based on their variety, suitability, quality and price etc.” And when something is accessed by the application, the consumer has no chance to compare and contrast in that app. Because only one window is accessible through the mobile app unlike web browser. In case of web browser, the consumer can shuffle through the web pages and compare the same product.

Let’s look into a simple example. Suppose you want to buy one sports shoe online, costing you between INR 3000 to INR 5000 and you only like three brands Puma, Adidas and Nike. You open your laptop or PC or tablet whatever to access the internet and filtered you choice as per your requirement in Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Yepme and Yebhi. Now you have a chance to compare your options very extensively as you can move through the tabs in your web browser. You might have a chance of finding a same product in all these 5 websites with a different price range. So as per your choice you will select the product from any of the ecommerce site. But in app only you don’t have any chance of doing such kind of juggling so options are less.

I think is a simple yet powerful proposition that might hurt Myntra. We Indians are no doubt price sensitive and like Amazon ad “Aur Dikhao” (show more) is our birth right. No matter how friendly the interface is, how selective the customize offerings are and how powerful the CRM tool is, we don’t give a damn. We are not brand loyal to any of the ecommerce player also.

Hope the strategist in Myntra are trying to create a new kind of consumer behaviour from this move. I wish them all the best & “All Will Well.”