 "Why mobile-only is the only way to go")
As internet usage over smartphones surges in India, leading players in different e-commerce categories are already getting over 60 per cent of their traffic from mobile. Online fashion company Myntra is planning to phase out its web presence by the end of this year to concentrate more on the mobile app. If this materialises, the company will become the first example of a mainstream online retailer morphing into a mobile-only player. At present, Myntra draws as much as 80 per cent of its traffic and 60 per cent of sales from its mobile app. Are Indian buyers ready for a mobile-only marketplace?
"Mobile-only offerings may soon be the norm"
India is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets globally and a fairly unique one too. One of the key statistics that stands out is that over 75 per cent of Indians have a mobile device but only 15 per cent have access to broadband. Therefore, going by the fundamentals, it was always a mobile-first market waiting to happen, and the time has come.
This year, smartphones have shown strong growth to reach over 117 million users in India and are expected to grow to 205 million by end of 2015. 3G subscriptions are also expected to grow handsomely from 88 million users in 2014 to 173 million users in 2015. Both of these statistics combined make mobile phones the device of choice to reach out to the customers.
As customers are getting addicted to their mobile devices, one of the key patterns that emerges is the inherent desire for instant gratification: "I want something and I want it now." This is the fundamental driver behind all successful mobile services, and e-commerce is no different. And when you start taking Tier-II/Tier-III cities into consideration, where a lot of variety may not be available in physical stores and the smartphone is perhaps the only device with internet access, the shift towards mobile commerce starts making a lot more sense. The second driver for m-commerce is convenience.
The leading players in all e-commerce categories are already getting over 50 per cent of their traffic from mobile, with this number being as high as 80 per cent for some categories. And we are just at the beginning of this revolution, with significant headroom for growth. Imagine what would happen when smartphones become so cheap that every one of the 1.2 billion Indians is able to afford one.
At MakeMyTrip, we are keenly watching this space and are coming up with services that are available to mobile-only users. On our booking apps, we have mobile-only features like the offline e-tickets and hotels near you as a result of which we see 40 per cent of hotels traffic and 34 per cent of hotels transactions happen on mobile. In October, we introduced India's first flight-booking service in Hindi, only for our mobile users, and we are extending the vernacular service to other languages such as Gujarati, Telugu and Tamil.
I will, therefore, say that India is ready for a mobile-only marketplace. In fact, Indian consumers have been ready for a few years now, but the perfect combination of affordable devices, mobile internet plans and consumer services has come together only recently to make this happen.
"Mobile experiences can drive better conversion"
The Indian marketplace has shown a huge shift from physical to e-commerce in the last five years and so it is just about time for a significant shift to m-commerce now. Better mobile shopping experiences, improved mobile connectivity, faster wireless data speeds and the ability to do this anywhere are factors that have been the cause of the shift to mobile shopping.
Increasing affordability of smartphones, special mobile sites and apps, improved data coverage, lower cost of mobile data plus the overall mobile ecosystem in general have created favourable conditions for m-commerce to grow impressively in the country. As mobile wallets become more prevalent and mainstream, it will make m-commerce even more seamless.
With 80 per cent year-on-year growth in smartphones (according to IDC) and more than 150 million mobile internet users (according to IAMAI), we are clearly seeing a mobile-first generation growing at a very fast pace. When designed well, mobile experiences (both app and web) can be far more engaging and can drive better conversion and impulse buying. A well-designed mobile app brings in even better stickiness and represents a committed set of loyal consumers for you. You can leverage the full power of the mobile feature-set to drive engaging and rewarding experience for your consumers.
For instance, allowing your consumers the ability to click and send a photo of a defective product or wrongly delivered product can help your customer service representatives to resolve that complaint with a very quick turnaround time. These are great opportunities to turn around a consumer from becoming dissatisfied to becoming an advocate for you.
Social commerce is also expected to give a boost and drive innovation in mobile-only shopping because the process happens more fluidly on a mobile device. As a result, social commerce is able to take advantage of how consumers are currently using their mobile devices, which is to share content they like. The mobile-only marketplace will allow users to shop directly from a community of brands. Like other social platforms, consumers will be able to follow designers and brands and then purchase from their feeds by swiping.
Myntra targets shoppers in the 18-27-year age profile, many of whom live in Tier-II and Tier-III towns, who contributes more than 50 per cent of its revenue and is growing at a faster rate. At this point more than half of their new users are coming through mobile devices. By becoming a mobile-only company, Myntra is clearly focusing on their target consumers, most of whom use the mobile phone as the only way to get online. With this move, Myntra is clearly focusing its energies and resources on creating better experiences for their target consumers in the channel most used by them. There is obviously a risk that it will lose some of its consumers who still use the desktop but it is probably betting that the incremental growth with mobile users will make up for that.
"The screen will be irrelevant, only the user will matter"
Myntra will not be the only one taking the "mobile only" as opposed to the "mobile first" route. Ixigo, PayTM are all examples of companies who're thinking and possibly implementing this. But before asking whether the Indian buyer is evolved enough to accept mobile-only marketplaces, we need to step back and look at the reality.
Why are the likes of Myntra, Snapdeal doing more than 60 per cent of their transactions on mobile? Because these transactions are no longer coming in just from metro markets - they are coming from markets where PCs are not part of every household but the mobile is. One look at Facebook tells you how the consumer has shifted their internet consumption from the PC to the mobile - Facebook has 18 million PC-only users and 68 million mobile-only users. New sign-up data will throw up an even drastic number and we might find that the new internet user is increasingly a mobile-only internet user. In fact, a confederation of Indian Industry report estimates that in the next six years, the number of people accessing the internet through mobile is set to reach 600 million. This growth will be spurred by a sharp rise in smartphone adoption. So the question of whether users are evolved enough for mobile-only doesn't arise; it is brands that need to evolve enough to understand this shift and adapt.
That said, one has to wonder whether shutting down a website is the correct route. It's not like PC usage is going extinct. It is just that what you do on a PC would be different from what you would do on mobile, and this would differ from consumer to consumer.
Any brand looking to take such a decision should answer one question - when will my consumers' moment of truth happen? For all you know, it could still very much happen on PC, or when one is watching television. No matter how much we love to think that mobile-only is the way to go, the consumer will be consuming content across screens, and as we get increasingly digital, the screen will be irrelevant, only the 'user'will matter.
Anurag Singh
co-founder & ED, (India ads platform), Affle
"Mobile-only offerings may soon be the norm"
India is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets globally and a fairly unique one too. One of the key statistics that stands out is that over 75 per cent of Indians have a mobile device but only 15 per cent have access to broadband. Therefore, going by the fundamentals, it was always a mobile-first market waiting to happen, and the time has come.
This year, smartphones have shown strong growth to reach over 117 million users in India and are expected to grow to 205 million by end of 2015. 3G subscriptions are also expected to grow handsomely from 88 million users in 2014 to 173 million users in 2015. Both of these statistics combined make mobile phones the device of choice to reach out to the customers.
As customers are getting addicted to their mobile devices, one of the key patterns that emerges is the inherent desire for instant gratification: "I want something and I want it now." This is the fundamental driver behind all successful mobile services, and e-commerce is no different. And when you start taking Tier-II/Tier-III cities into consideration, where a lot of variety may not be available in physical stores and the smartphone is perhaps the only device with internet access, the shift towards mobile commerce starts making a lot more sense. The second driver for m-commerce is convenience.
The leading players in all e-commerce categories are already getting over 50 per cent of their traffic from mobile, with this number being as high as 80 per cent for some categories. And we are just at the beginning of this revolution, with significant headroom for growth. Imagine what would happen when smartphones become so cheap that every one of the 1.2 billion Indians is able to afford one.
At MakeMyTrip, we are keenly watching this space and are coming up with services that are available to mobile-only users. On our booking apps, we have mobile-only features like the offline e-tickets and hotels near you as a result of which we see 40 per cent of hotels traffic and 34 per cent of hotels transactions happen on mobile. In October, we introduced India's first flight-booking service in Hindi, only for our mobile users, and we are extending the vernacular service to other languages such as Gujarati, Telugu and Tamil.
I will, therefore, say that India is ready for a mobile-only marketplace. In fact, Indian consumers have been ready for a few years now, but the perfect combination of affordable devices, mobile internet plans and consumer services has come together only recently to make this happen.
Pranav Bhasin
Head, Online Products, MakeMyTrip.com
Head, Online Products, MakeMyTrip.com
"Mobile experiences can drive better conversion"
The Indian marketplace has shown a huge shift from physical to e-commerce in the last five years and so it is just about time for a significant shift to m-commerce now. Better mobile shopping experiences, improved mobile connectivity, faster wireless data speeds and the ability to do this anywhere are factors that have been the cause of the shift to mobile shopping.
Increasing affordability of smartphones, special mobile sites and apps, improved data coverage, lower cost of mobile data plus the overall mobile ecosystem in general have created favourable conditions for m-commerce to grow impressively in the country. As mobile wallets become more prevalent and mainstream, it will make m-commerce even more seamless.
With 80 per cent year-on-year growth in smartphones (according to IDC) and more than 150 million mobile internet users (according to IAMAI), we are clearly seeing a mobile-first generation growing at a very fast pace. When designed well, mobile experiences (both app and web) can be far more engaging and can drive better conversion and impulse buying. A well-designed mobile app brings in even better stickiness and represents a committed set of loyal consumers for you. You can leverage the full power of the mobile feature-set to drive engaging and rewarding experience for your consumers.
For instance, allowing your consumers the ability to click and send a photo of a defective product or wrongly delivered product can help your customer service representatives to resolve that complaint with a very quick turnaround time. These are great opportunities to turn around a consumer from becoming dissatisfied to becoming an advocate for you.
Social commerce is also expected to give a boost and drive innovation in mobile-only shopping because the process happens more fluidly on a mobile device. As a result, social commerce is able to take advantage of how consumers are currently using their mobile devices, which is to share content they like. The mobile-only marketplace will allow users to shop directly from a community of brands. Like other social platforms, consumers will be able to follow designers and brands and then purchase from their feeds by swiping.
Myntra targets shoppers in the 18-27-year age profile, many of whom live in Tier-II and Tier-III towns, who contributes more than 50 per cent of its revenue and is growing at a faster rate. At this point more than half of their new users are coming through mobile devices. By becoming a mobile-only company, Myntra is clearly focusing on their target consumers, most of whom use the mobile phone as the only way to get online. With this move, Myntra is clearly focusing its energies and resources on creating better experiences for their target consumers in the channel most used by them. There is obviously a risk that it will lose some of its consumers who still use the desktop but it is probably betting that the incremental growth with mobile users will make up for that.
Prashant Mehta
VP & Global Delivery Lead, SI Practice, SapientNitro
VP & Global Delivery Lead, SI Practice, SapientNitro
"The screen will be irrelevant, only the user will matter"
Myntra will not be the only one taking the "mobile only" as opposed to the "mobile first" route. Ixigo, PayTM are all examples of companies who're thinking and possibly implementing this. But before asking whether the Indian buyer is evolved enough to accept mobile-only marketplaces, we need to step back and look at the reality.
Why are the likes of Myntra, Snapdeal doing more than 60 per cent of their transactions on mobile? Because these transactions are no longer coming in just from metro markets - they are coming from markets where PCs are not part of every household but the mobile is. One look at Facebook tells you how the consumer has shifted their internet consumption from the PC to the mobile - Facebook has 18 million PC-only users and 68 million mobile-only users. New sign-up data will throw up an even drastic number and we might find that the new internet user is increasingly a mobile-only internet user. In fact, a confederation of Indian Industry report estimates that in the next six years, the number of people accessing the internet through mobile is set to reach 600 million. This growth will be spurred by a sharp rise in smartphone adoption. So the question of whether users are evolved enough for mobile-only doesn't arise; it is brands that need to evolve enough to understand this shift and adapt.
That said, one has to wonder whether shutting down a website is the correct route. It's not like PC usage is going extinct. It is just that what you do on a PC would be different from what you would do on mobile, and this would differ from consumer to consumer.
Any brand looking to take such a decision should answer one question - when will my consumers' moment of truth happen? For all you know, it could still very much happen on PC, or when one is watching television. No matter how much we love to think that mobile-only is the way to go, the consumer will be consuming content across screens, and as we get increasingly digital, the screen will be irrelevant, only the 'user'will matter.
Anurag Singh
co-founder & ED, (India ads platform), Affle