After Amazon's Prime success, Flipkart-owned Myntra to launch loyalty programme

After Amazon's success with its Prime programme, Flipkart-owned fashion retailer Myntra is planning to launch its own loyalty programme to keep existing customers on its platform.

Soon to be launched loyalty programme will be Fashion-specific and different from existing such programmes in the market. "We have to work on the innovative programme, which won't be like Amazon's Prime. It will come out in a month and half," Ananth Narayanan, Myntra's CEO was quoted as saying by Livemint.

Myntra’s loyalty plan comes at a time when Amazon’s Prime programme has been proving to be a hit with customers. Amazon India has launched its Prime services in July 2016. Prime subscription service became a differentiator in driving growth as a third of the orders being driven by Prime customers. In a year-time, it claims to have got 65% new users and one lakh more sellers on its platform.

Flipkart too has a loyalty service but it has not been as successful as its rival Amazon's programme. In May 2014, Flipkart acquired Myntra in an estimated Rs 2,000 crore deal. While Flipkart, with an addition of fashion portals Myntra and Jabong, is larger than Amazon India in terms of overall sales, the Amazon India seems to be growing faster as compared to its local rival.

Myntra sales growth during EOR

In its sixth edition of End of Reason (EOR) sale, almost 1.3 million customers placed orders for 4.2 million products during its three-day sale, helping sales register 56 percent growth over last year's edition, said Myntra.

The sale number includes those of Jabong, which was acquired by Myntra in July last year for $70 million.

Myntra posted gross sales of around Rs 450 crore during its three-day season-end sale, added LiveMint mentioning two executives directly aware of the numbers. Overall sales grew 56% from last July’s season-end sale, driven primarily by top sports brands such as Puma and Nike. The figures also include sales from Jabong, which Myntra acquired last year for $70 million.

During its previous end-of-season sale in January, Myntra generated sales of about Rs 408 crore over three days, including sales from Jabong. The sale helped push Myntra’s monthly sales to over Rs 850 crore in January—nearly twice the amount it generates during a normal, non-sale month. At present, Myntra boasts of private labels such as Roadster, HRX, Dressberry and Anouk.

During the sale, Myntra introduced a new feature called Myntra Shopping Groups, which allows buyers to shop in so-called online groups, as part of a move to drive higher traffic and retain more customers. Myntra said nearly 100,000 shopping groups were formed during the sale and contributed about 18 per cent of sales.

The company aims to touch, profitability in next fiscal, annual revenue of about Rs 8,500 crore for 2017-18.