End of Reason sale: Myntra learns from parent Flipkart's mistakes

Fashion e-tailer queues up buyers for its 2-day sale to ensure no server crashes

Having learnt a lesson from parent Flipkart’s mistakes, fashion e-tailer Myntra is allowing only a limited number of buyers to its website during its ongoing two-day sale to ensure that the server doesn't crash.

Several users who tried to open Myntra’s website this morning were welcomed with a timer that showed the estimated time they would need to wait before getting access to the website.

“Please wait. Your shopping will begin shortly,” the web page, restricting entry into Myntra, showed. “Our store is full of shoppers and our systems are operating at maximum capacity. We are trying our best to sneak you in. Please check back in a few minutes to shop at India’s biggest fashion sale!”

While the strategy has worked well and Myntra has not seen any significant technical glitches despite a spike in activity on the website, several consumers took to social media to complain against the waiting period, which for some was as long as 30 minutes.

“If I wanted to wait, I would be out in a store, this defeats the very essence of online shopping,” said a post by a consumer on micro-blogging website Twitter earlier today.

Flipkart had been at the receiving end of flak from consumers when it was unable to manage heavy traffic on its website during the 'Big Billion Day' sale in October 2014. The technical glitches and server crashes through the one-day sale had led Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related) to eventually apologise to consumers.

Myntra’s 'End of Reason' sale started at 8 am today and will end on Sunday evening.