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While its statistics may show a major conversion rate increase with the kind of personalisation it can do with the user information app provides and marketing opportunities that it opens up, going app only goes against my interest of browsing in the comfort of my home and on the same screen that I use for work. What Flipkart should wonder is this: If the people who are browsing on laptops, stop doing that, what drop in the word-of-mouth will it create? It needs to find out how people ‘decide’ to buy.
I understand that browsing in the app would increase my probability of buying from that same app. What they need to look at is what percentage of apps remains installed for more than a month?
I understand they want to capture the mature audience who is short on time, heavy on money and have the app installed. But if that’s where they want to be, then Amazon has already arrived, and Jabong and Shopclues are waiting for some space to clear up – the space Flipkart occupies on the Google search. As the bounce rates for Flipkart increase, the competitors will merrily grow faster.
Let’s go a little back in time and see why e-commerce started. The reason was that buyers were going online. Did that mean that brick and mortar shops would close and existing businesses would ban access to stores because people can now check the stock online? I know that the business model itself, for online and offline stores is different. But to me, as a buyer, business model doesn’t matter. To me, it is about where I find that dress I want to buy, in the most convenient way possible. I challenge the assumption that browsing and choosing on mobile is desirable. It is not.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.
