With the number of unique mobile users across the world currently being a whopping 3.5 billion, introducing mobile applications into the present marketing machinery is no longer a choice; it’s a must to achieve entrepreneurship success. The catch, however, is whether to go app-first, app-later, or app-only. After all, jumping on to the app bandwagon is certainly not the only thing that you can hold on to in order to outwit your competitors in the ecommerce sector. Solidifying your brand via desktop and mobile websites is imperative. Saying so, wondering what’s with online retailers such as Myntra and Flipkart risking to go ‘only app’? We find out:
The big switch
According to a survey by US-based financial services
corporation, Morgan Stanley, India’s online shopping penetration is predicted
to grow from 9 percent in 2013 to 36 percent in 2020. Myntra didn’t want to
leave any stone unturned to grab a share of this big cookie or so it appears to
be. Justifying their complete switch, Mukesh Bansal, Myntra co-founder, was
quoted saying that desktops were not giving the same ROI as they used to. The
business was drawing 70 percent of sales and 80 percent of traffic from its
mobile app only.
This move, however, has been a hard pill to swallow for the
generation of desktop lovers, who love to shop via their personal computers
(PCs). In fact, Alok Kejriwal, the CEO and co-founder of Games2win, in his article went on to heavily criticize this ‘app-only’ approach, calling it nothing but a
‘cost-cutting measure’. “Starving people
of access to large, popular Internet brands and making them available only via
an app is a premeditated strategy to significantly reduce sales volume,”
stated Kejriwal, who feels that a reputed website is equivalent to a well-known
store on a busy market area. Shoppers can move from one store to another,
haggling until they find their pick. It’s completely their choice whether they
visit this well-known store or not. On the other hand, a dedicated app is like
an exclusive private store, where the shoppers’ choice to compare is a lot more
restricted. Not just Kejriwal, many other industry experts, too, feel that by
going ‘app-only’, these online retailers have controlled consumer behavior, and
this can make them “feel stifled (we are
trained to google options and compare prices) and may never come back.”
How ‘app-only’ benefits Flipkart
and Myntra?
Kejriwal’s view received sharp censure from the Sachin Bansal, the
CEO of Flipkart, the parent company of Myntra. He almost slammed Kejriwal,
tagging his handle @rodinhood on microblogging site, Twitter, saying: when he
tweeted, saying, “One of the most retarded pieces of writing I’ve read in a
long time. @rodinhood: Bhai tu rehne de… (sic)”
Well, considering Myntra was getting more traffic and conversions from its app, the decision to adopt the ‘app-only’ strategy was nothing short of a masterstroke by the company. Aimed to cut losses from sales via delivery costs, returns etc and even from infrastructure, by going ‘app only’, businesses like these can in fact benefit from the present m-commerce scenario in India.
India hasjust started experiencing the full-fledged potential of mobile devices. The
mobile phenomenon is penetrating the sub continent with increasing speed every
day, making Tier II and Tier III cities get greater access to smartphones and
Internet connection, so much that the country is slated to become the second
largest smartphone market in 2016. Besides, the mobile app market in India
doesn’t have an alpha yet so this is undoubtedly the right time to invest in a
standalone app strategy. However, implementation is the key here. It will be
nothing short of suicidal for a newly-opened business to think that it’ll find
success with its app straightaway. An ‘app-only’ approach can be adopted by a
business only when its website is popular, and it has already established its brand
presence in the marketplace.
Want to go the app way with your business? Consult with us here.
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