Fashion e-tailers take social commerce route

Rising on India's smartphone boom, they are chasing users with social engagement apps

Entities promoting fashion shopping via mobiles are increasing their engagement with users on smartphones with personalised and curated content.

The increased features aim to increase the time spent by users on apps of online commerce firms, such as Myntra and Wooplr, which they expect will result in higher spending.

Myntra went app-only in May, the first large e-commerce entity to do so in India, which is fast emerging as a mobile-first economy. India has 160 million smartphone users — one in six mobile users own smartphones. Myntra has 12 million users who have downloaded its app on their smartphone and they spend an average of 40 minutes a week to either look at the goods or make a transaction. Indians spend an average of 169 minutes a day on their smartphones, said a study issued by Vserv in July.

With the makeover, Myntra customers will get to experience a socially-oriented platform rather than a shopping app, were you log-in solely for purchasing. Personalised, socially connected, content-driven inspirations and celebrities or influencer connects are some of the features the redefined app will have, in addition to visually rich and video-supported content.

“We always thought about it first principle-wise. Fashion shopping is an emotional, personal and solutioning-driven social endeavour and has high involvement from a customer’s point of view,” said Prasad Kompalli, head of the e-commerce platform at Myntra Designs.

Increased smartphone penetration has made sure such shopping is now more of a behavioural activity. Klip, a combination of Twitter and Pinterest for fashion, is an early entrant in the social fashion space. Though not a platform for purchasing, Klip connects a user with the e-commerce if he/she wants to check an interesting product from its feed. Fashion shopping portals LimeRoad, Wooplr and Voonik are already well-recognised players in the space.

An April study by researcher Zinnov says India’s mobile commerce market is expected to be $19 billion by 2019, from $2 bn in 2014. In May, a report by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, a US venture capital investor, said 41 per cent of all online commerce transactions were done on smartphones in 2014, the highest globally.

“Bringing social engagement features will promote impulsive shopping. Social is driven by content. Social, in turn, drives the e-commerce part,” said Praveen Rajaretnam, co-founder and chief marketing officer, Wooplr, which recently introduced a real-time purchasing feature on to its platform.

What makes fashion shopping different from other categories like electronics and books is that it is often a discovery-led purchase. Apart from purchasing, users also use these apps to keep themselves updated regarding the new trends and styles, and to get expert advice from stylists.

“It is important to enable customers to discover items relevant to them. To measure discovery, retailers have to look at customer engagement, social trends, personalisation, lifestyle, budget preference, personality, time spent, etc,” said Sujayath Ali, chief executive officer and co-founder at Voonik.