Myntra – India’s Largest Fashion eCommerce Platform
Myntra is the biggest Indian fashion e-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru that serves millions of people. Mukesh Bansal started Myntra as a B2b Company before they started a famous eCommerce. The company was founded in 2007 to sell personalized gift items. By 2010, Myntra shifted its focus to the online retailing of branded apparel. It mainly operated on the B2B model during its initial years. Between 2007 and 2010, the site allowed customers to personalize products such as T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, and others. Myntra now holds more than 2000 world’s top fashion brands on its eCommerce website.
In 2011, Myntra began selling fashion and lifestyle products and moved away from personalization.
By 2012 Myntra offered products from 350 Indian and International brands. Some of the brands that were launched are Fastrack Watches, Being Human, etc.
In 2014 Myntra was acquired by Flipkart. The purchase was influenced by two large common shareholders, Tiger Global and Accel Partners. Being merged with the eCommerce giant Flipkart, Myntra still functions as an independent body. Myntra continues to operate as a brand that focuses primarily on “fashion-conscious” consumers.
In 2014, Myntra’s portfolio included about 1,50,000 products of over 1000 brands, with a distribution area of around 9000 pin codes in India.
In 2015, Ananth Narayanan became the Chief Executive Officer of Myntra. On 10 May 2015, Myntra announced that it would shut down its website, and serve customers exclusively through its mobile app. Myntra justified its decision by stating that 95% of traffic on its website came via mobile devices and that 70% of its purchases were performed on smartphones. This move resulted in a 10% decline in sales.
In February 2016, acknowledging the failure of the “app-only” model, Myntra announced that it would revive its website. In the same year, Myntra acquired Jabong for $70 million.
In September 2017, Myntra negotiated the rights to manage Esprit Holdings’ 15 offline stores in India. Myntra reported a net loss of ₹151.20 crore in the financial year 2017-18.
Myntra is a very unique player in the eCommerce industry. Their association with Bollywood celebrities such as Hrithik Roshan, Kangana Ranaut, Ranveer Singh, and Lisa Haydon and so on has put them in the limelight that contributed to Myntra success. This marketing strategy was one of the major factors that helped them to reach more customers. The company’s success can also be determined by the fact that they started from making just 9 crores in their early years to 773 crores in the financial year 2015-16.
Myntra has become the largest fashion and lifestyle retail in India and people prefer to purchase apparel, footwear, and other fashion items as its first choice. Myntra headed with firm leadership and astute business mindedness is one of the reasons for its success in the race of best eCommerce platform in India.
Myntra is now planning to enter India’s booming beauty market with a chain of brick-and-mortar stores selling multi-brand cosmetics and wellness items. Myntra already sells more than 100 beauty and cosmetics brands on its ecommerce platform but now plans to sell these products through a chain of multi-brand physical stores. Overall, Myntra’s future looks very bright. The brand will now leverage the strength of the overall group.