Myntra aims to launch loyalty programme

Bengaluru: Flipkart-owned online fashion retailer Myntra, whose sales grew 56% from a year earlier during its season-end sale, will soon launch a new loyalty programme as part of a broader strategy to get existing customers to shop more and also to acquire new shoppers, a top company executive said.

In an interview on Tuesday, Myntra chief executive Ananth Narayanan said the new loyalty programme will be different from Amazon’s Prime service and would be “fashion-specific”.

“We are actually thinking of innovating around a loyalty programme, which you should see come out in a month and a half,” said Narayanan. “It won’t be like Prime, but it makes sense to have a loyalty programme. We’ve been working on it for two-three months.”

Myntra’s plan comes at a time when Amazon’s Prime programme is proving to be a crucial differentiator for the US-based e-commerce giant in its fight against local rival Flipkart, with over 30% of Amazon India’s overall orders coming from Prime users.

Myntra’s strategy is also different from the approach taken by parent Flipkart, which too has a loyalty service that the company isn’t pushing aggressively. Flipkart executives say privately that most Indians are unlikely to take to loyalty programmes and are disinclined to pay for delivery and convenience or content.

Myntra posted gross sales of around Rs450 crore during its three-day season-end sale, which concluded on Monday, according to two executives directly aware of the numbers. The figures also include sales from Jabong, which Myntra acquired last year for $70 million.

Narayanan declined to comment on Myntra’s sales during its End of Reason Sale, but said the firm had exceeded its internal targets for the event. “The biggest thing for us this time was that the consumer experience was fabulous. Almost 2 lakh deliveries are already done,” he said.

Overall sales grew 56% from last July’s season-end sale, driven primarily by top sports brands such as Puma and Nike.

During its previous end-of-season sale in January, Myntra generated sales of about Rs408 crore over three days, including sales from Jabong. The sale helped push Myntra’s monthly sales to over Rs850 crore in January—nearly twice the amount it generates during a normal, non-sale month.

Myntra said that 1.3 million customers participated during the three-day sale, with 4.2 million products being sold during the event. Private-label brands contributed a little over a fifth of overall sales. Myntra currently boasts of private labels such as Roadster, HRX, Dressberry and Anouk.

During the sale, Myntra introduced a new feature called Myntra Shopping Groups, which allows buyers to shop in so-called online groups, as part of a move to drive higher traffic and retain more customers. Myntra said nearly 100,000 shopping groups were formed during the sale and contributed about 18% of sales.

Earlier this month, Mint had reported that Myntra, which is attempting to hit profitability by the end of the current financial year, is aiming to touch annual revenue of about Rs8,500 crore for 2017-18.

Separately, Amazon India said sales of its top fashion brands grew five times compared to normal-day sales during its recently-concluded end-of-season fashion sale. Amazon India’s fashion head Arun Sirdeshmukh said sales of top brands including Marks and Spencer, Pepe Jeans and private-label brand Symbol symbol grew 10-20 times, compared to average-day sales.