Ag Talk | Foresee tremendous scope for growth in mobile: Mukesh Bansal

Myntra.com one of the known and much talked e-commerce platforms in India have been known for their fashion and lifestyle products and with core value proposition revolving around giving consumers the power and ease of purchasing fashion and lifestyle products online, Myntra always been praised for its products and services. With over 700 leading fashion and lifestyle brands such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Lee, Levis, Wrangler, Arrow, Jealous 21, Biba, Fabindia, US Polo under its umbrella, the brand likes to offer a wide range in latest branded fashion and lifestyle wear. Very recently Myntra was aqcuired by another known brand in the e-commerce space, Flipkart with an aim to bring high quality and affordable lifestyle products to Indian customers,

Mukesh Bansal, man behind Myntra.com started the company in February 2007 with a vision of creating India’s largest on-demand personalization portal. With over 14 years of experience in multiple early stage start-ups in Silicon Valley wherein he has held various senior management positions in Product Management, Marketing and Product development. Bansal, a B.Tech graduate has taken all the possibe steps to make the brand reach newer heights and believes that India will witness the emergence of many large and innovative businesses over next 10-15 years.

Adgully caught up with Mukesh Bansal, CEO, Myntra and Head of Fashion, Flipkart to understand the companies plan, their successful journey so far and much more…

Adgully (AG): How has been the growth for Myntra over the years?

Mukesh Bansal (MB): The e-commerce industry is growing at a fast pace and is currently over $3 billion. E-tailing has also taken advantage of this boom to grow significantly over the past few years. Myntra has been consistently doubling its revenues every 6 - 9 months for the past 15 months and currently receives 30,000 - 35,000 orders a day. With close to 1,00,000 of the best fashion and lifestyle products being available online, Myntra.com is, today, the largest online retailer in the fashion and lifestyle segment.


AG: This year in May 2014, Myntra.com merged with another Indian e-commerce company flipkart. What synergy does the merger bring about for both the companies so far?

MB: Flipkart is the biggest brand in e-commerce in India with its pioneering strategies in the industry. Joining hands with Flipkart will allow us to leverage their technology expertise, vast user base and increase our customer reach substantially. This consolidation has mutually helped us realize that together we can become the most powerful fashion retailer both online and offline. Today, together we command a phenomenal 50% of the online fashion market and we will continue to grow.


AG: Brief us about ticket to trends’ weekend – Myntra Fashion Weekend, and also your association with IMG Reliance?

MB: With the vision of making India look good, we have always been committed to offering unique and engaging experiences for our customers over the years.‘Myntra Fashion Weekend’ will mark another step in our journey of working towards this vision, It’s a ticketed consumer shopping event and we’re excited to be pioneering this unique concept of a fashion weekend in India, in collaboration with IMG Reliance. This ‘Tickets to Trends’ event will give consumers an opportunity to indulge in a complete shopping experience – right from learning about latest trends, to getting styling tips from fashion experts and shopping for trendy apparel fresh off the MFW runway.

IMG Reliance is a global leader in sports and entertainment marketing and management. They have a lot of experience and expertise in managing fashion weeks in India and overseas and are completely aware of the concept of a Fashion Weekend. Our passion and aspirations match in terms of making the trendiest of fashion available to the consumers and hence the collaboration was a perfect fit for both companies. Through MFW, we aim to make the world of fashion easily accessible to all, inviting consumers to actively participate and define new trends in the fashion and lifestyle space.

AG: How fruitful this initiative will be for Myntra and IMG Reliance? What kind of value addition brand​ expects to derive? ​

MB: India has seen many fashion weeks which are primarily trade events where the consumer rarely gets invited. We wanted to create a unique property in India with ‘Myntra Fashion Weekend’ to offer a global fashion experience for our consumers.

With over 100 qualitative designers and brands exhibiting their exclusive and trend setting creations, the customer centric event promises to be of great value to all brands, sponsors and partners. It will help us initiate, engage and build a bond with consumers and fans through direct product and service offering/ experiences. We are hoping that the MFW will be as well received as other fashion weekends around the globe.

AG: Now a days, we’ve seen e-commerce portals getting celebrities on board as brand ambassador or ​ doing associations with films. How beneficial are these strategies in the long run?

MB: Being the preferred online fashion destination in the country, we constantly aim to resonate fashion and lifestyle in the hearts and minds of the Youth of the country. Bollywood is a key influencer of fashion and that is why we like to be closely associated with industry's most sought after celebrities, as it is an effective way to enhance our fashion quotient, influence brand perceptions, connect with our shoppers and elevate Myntra's identity.

Understanding the fashion aspirations of the customers through such associations clubbed with a deep knowledge of fashion trends and a fine marketing focus has attributed to our success and we will continue to deliver beyond customer expectations in the years to come.

AG: How important is it for a new brand to get associated with television properties that doing just the regular advertising?​ As now a days we are seeing loads of new entrant​ getting associated with big and small ticket properties on television?

MB: About 2-3 years back, e-commerce was still at its infancy which required companies to invest in mainstream media to educate masses on the benefits over traditional brick and mortar retail. Companies also focused on building a strong customer base and brand recall which required a good mix of both TV and digital advertising. Over the years, Television has helped build credibility and stature for new entrants, besides providing mass reach. Apart from airing ads, we have also partnered with television properties as we believe that both offer engagement and reach. One recent association was with IIFA held at Tampa Bay, USA where Myntra showcased it in-house fashion brands during the IIFA Rocks nite with Ritesh Deshmukh walking the ramp.

AG: Who are your TG’s and also share your key markets in India?

MB: Our typical shoppers fall in the age bracket of 20-35 years, both male and female. About 55 per cent of our shoppers are from tier 2 & 3 cities with the rest in top 10 cities.

AG: What kind of opportunities do you see with the new age engagement platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Smartphones? How ​robust is Myntra's strategies when it comes to utilising digital and social media platforms?

MB: Through the years, we, at Myntra, have adopted a more measured strategy in tapping social media. Today, our entire digital machinery is built with the objective to connect with our shoppers and fans with engaging content to help them look good and feel great. Our campaigns on social platforms have been crafted with interesting content, creative graphics and videos, with the idea to encourage people to not just shop online on Myntra.com but to be able to make it a fun place like a mall where people just visit to hang out. Myntra wants to ensure that shoppers enjoy the entire experience beyond just shopping, like, finding out what Salmaan Khan wore yesterday or which celebrity launched a clothing line, what is the new trend for this season, what are the international trends etc.

Recent campaigns like the Online Treasure Hunt, the Indian Fashion League and Live for Likes among others have been very well received by our consumers. We also see mobile as a key driver to engage users. Data has revealed that consumers are spending significantly more time on our app as compared to desktop. This is largely attributed to the fact that mobile is a more personal device that users carry with them all the time and are looking to consume content even when on the go.

Our focus therefore is to position our app as a strong engagement tool. We want to build strong use cases that may compel users to open our app every day. E.g. Every morning, can we recommend what dress the user should wear? We believe that once the users are highly engaged, shopping becomes incidental.

AG: What are your plans and strategies for the year ahead​?​

MB: The number of online shoppers has been steadily increasing in the last three years with a yearly increase of 5-6 million shoppers. Today this pool of shoppers is estimated at over 25 million.
Our goal is to become the largest fashion destination in the country and build a brand that clearly differentiates us from the rest. Myntra has and will remain committed to helping customers’ look and feel great, by providing them fashion advice from our experts along with the latest curated collection of apparel, footwear and accessories to choose from.  We will continue to significantly increase our private brands business, and add more brands and exclusive offerings to our portfolio. We will continue to focus on expanding our presence in Tier II and Tier III markets, making fashion more and more accessible.

We are also working aggressively towards building a complete mobile ecosystem. Around 45% of our business is already generated via mobile with a lot of first time users of internet shopping through mobile devices (particularly from Tier 2 & 3 cities). We see tremendous scope for future growth in the mobile space. [By Ranjana Gupta| Twitter: @RGrightsreserve]

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