Before you jump to any conclusions, Flipkart is not shutting down; just their website is. It is official that Flipkart is ditching their website and embracing an app-only shopping experience for their customers.
Punit Soni, Flipkart’s Chief Product Office has declared that from September, Flipkart will only sell via mobile app and their website would stop functioning.
After Flipkart acquired Myntra, Myntra had gone an app-only mode and now, after two months, Flipkart has announced to do the same. However, Myntra had reported a decline in 10% of sales immediately after they went mobile only, despite the fact that prior to shutting down their website, they had reported 90% of traffic and 70% of sales from mobile. Does this mean that a similar fate can come to Flipkart as well? We shall see!
When asked about this, Flipkart did not deny the news. It said, “India is gradually transitioning from a mobile first to a mobile only country. At Flipkart, we have been following a mobile first approach and 70%-75% of our total traffic is already coming from our mobile app. We are constantly experimenting with various aspects of our service to create the best shopping experience for our users on our app. Meanwhile, we continue to offer both desktop as well as mobile option for our customers.”
Currently, Flipkart registers 10 million hits a day from 45 million registered users. This year, they plan to double their GMV to $8 billion. Do you think they could really achieve this if they shut their website?
A very interesting observation was made by Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO of Freecharge.
Based on research, most Indians have only 19-20 apps on their android smartphones. Out of these, 15 odd apps are the…
Posted by Kunal Shah on Monday, July 6, 2015
Though he did not name Flipkart, he has a very valid point. What do you think of Flipkart’s move? Would online shopping by a mobile app be as smooth as that from a desktop? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
