App-only policy irks many online shoppers

Pratishtha Maharaj, a Bengaluru homemaker, had difficulty last week trying to buy clothes from Flipkart. "I could not open the website on the browser of my phone. I was asked to download the app. But due to low storage on my phone, I could not," she said, adding, "I bought a similar product from Amazon.in's website."

With traffic from mobile devices on the rise, e-commerce companies are pushing users to download apps by offering app-only discounts or discontinuing mobile phone websites.They want a grip on spending and better mining of customer data, but experts said an app-only strategy might not be the best.

Indian e-commerce is ahead of China and the US in sales from mobile phones and apps. Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, receives a little over 30 per cent of its gross merchandise value from mobile phones and apps. The majority of Indian e-commerce companies report over 60 per cent sales on non-desktop platforms.

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• The size ofe-commerce apps is 20-40 MB, while the memory on entry-level smartphones is 4-12 GB
• According to users, an entry-level smartphone can hold around 12 to 15 apps of 30 to 80 MB each
• Mobile internet users in India are estimated at 120 million against 100 million using internet on their computers.

The principal reason is India's slow broadband network and shallow penetration of internet broadband. Smartphones have pushed up data use, raising e-commerce sales in smaller towns.

"All companies are working on a seamless app experience. As much as 80-90 per cent of sales could come from mobile apps," said the chief executive officer of a fashion e-tailer.

"E-commerce companies must have a multi-channel strategy because there are several challenges while shopping from an app," said Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Not all users have tablets, and the screen size of a mobile phone is too small to offer a rich shopping experience. A large number of people browse on apps but buy on websites," he added. The size of e-commerce apps is 20-40 MB, while the memory on entry-level smartphones is 4-12 GB. According to users, an entry-level smartphone can hold around 12-15 apps of 30-80 MB.

Mobile internet users in India are estimated at 120 million against 100 million using internet on their computers.

Fashion retailer Myntra has an app-only strategy, which may become effective on May 1, 2015. A Myntra spokesperson, however, said it was a long-term strategy. The company receives 90 per cent of its traffic from mobile phones.

"Even though most of our new users are using mobile devices, we have a fair number of visitors using computers," said Rohit Bansal, co-founder and chief operating officer of online marketplace Snapdeal. "We will not have an app-only strategy because we do not want to upset users who access our website from computers," he added.