Myntra eyes 18 mn festive-sale users, prepared for 12,000 orders per minute

To cater to the growing demand, Myntra has doubled its inventory over December last year

Walmart-owned online fashion retailer Myntra is expecting the number of customers for its End of Reason Sale (EORS) this year to be 60 per cent more than last year. To cater to the growing demand, the e-commerce company has doubled its inventory from the previous EORS edition in December 2018. It hopes to serve 18 million users during the four-day sale from December 22 to 25.

Myntra said it was geared to handle 12,000 orders per minute during peak demand. It was expanding its reach to over 23,000 PIN codes to take fashion to the doorstep of people from every region of the country, it added.

During this year’s sale, the biggest to date, the fashion retailer will display on its platform over 850,000 styles from more than 3,000 domestic and international brands like Nike, Swarovski, Tommy Hilfiger, and Marks & Spencer. It will also feature Myntra private brands Roadster, HRX, ‘All About You’, and ‘House of Pataudi’.

“We are also expecting sales during EORS to be five times more than on normal days, with over 50 per cent of the sales coming from Tier-II and -III cities and towns,” said Amar Nagaram, head, Myntra Jabong. “There is a lot of technology play here. It is not just about what products would be sold but where they would be sold. We're working hard to predict the right type of inventory to be placed at each location so that it is closer to the demand.”

Myntra has partnered with 35 leading brands to enable deliveries directly from their stores resulting in a wider selection and faster deliveries for customers during EORS. To make shopping more convenient for customers, the firm has also partnered with 200 tailors to offer alteration services in Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. It has opened 20 experience centres across the country for value-added services like pick up, returns, trial rooms and alterations.

Myntra is looking to acquire 700,000 new customers during this edition of EORS, and it expects traffic coming to the platform to be 50 per cent higher than last year. It said the highly successful Kirana model, under MENSA (Myntra Extended Network for Service Augmentation), would cater to 70 per cent of overall deliveries through 15,000 stores across the country. In addition, there were nine forward deployment centres around high demand clusters to enhance logistical capabilities. “EORS also provides us with an opportunity to collaborate with small businesses within our ecosystem,” said Nagaram.

In a first, 50 new brands are being launched on Myntra ahead of the mega sale event. Some of them are Onitsuka Tiger, H&M, Tissot and Fitbit. The company has also scaled up the selection of its private brands with 150,000 styles across apparel, accessories and footwear. Key categories expected to have a high demand include winter wear, women’s ethnic and western wear, denim, streetwear, sports and beauty.

According to experts, fashion is a $100-billion market in India, and online retail players have only a 6 per cent penetration.