Myntra Investing Heavily in SCM
Myntra Investing Heavily in SCM
Myntra is one of the poster boys of online fashion retailing in the country. While 2014 was the year of 'Flash Sales', efficient supply chain management and logistics is the focus for most online retailers in 2015.
Retailer magazine discusses that with Myntra's Head of eCommerce platform, Prasad Kompalli and is informed of the massive investments being made in a bid to integrate Myntra's own and third-party logistics under one platform, and the 'Flash Sale' riddle.
Please tell us about the importance of the flash sales in the eCommerce space. 
Flash sale is more prominent and well developed in China and US. There are some players in India following the flash sales model, but it is a less understood concept here. 
Flash sale is more of supply driven and not a demand driven concept. The concept has come up to liquidate large inventory. In a flash sale, it's usually the older and discountable stock that is up for sale. It's a stock which is probably not in all sizes, so to dispose and find that long tail demand, that somebody may want older stock, flash sale is put up. Generally, in a flash sale it's a flat 80 per cent discount offered on older products.
 
Please tell us about the importance of the flash sales in the eCommerce space. 
Flash sale is more prominent and well developed in China and US. There are some players in India following the flash sales model, but it is a less understood concept here. 
Flash sale is more of supply driven and not a demand driven concept. The concept has come up to liquidate large inventory. In a flash sale, it's usually the older and discountable stock that is up for sale. It's a stock which is probably not in all sizes, so to dispose and find that long tail demand, that somebody may want older stock, flash sale is put up. 
Generally, in a flash sale it's a flat 80 per cent discount offered on older products.
 
Do you think the concept will be popular in India?  
It's a popular concept in China, considering the country is hub for clothing manufacturing with a lot of apparel stock available to dispose. In India also it happens but I think so far nobody has aggregated that value. 
If it's a good product and the Indian consumer doesn't mind buying older, last season's product, then the concept will work. Clearly, the concept is not for somebody who is looking for latest products.
 
Please tell us about your supply chain management.
So far we are building our own solutions. We have built up our own technology and logistics warehousing infrastructure both at Flipkart and Myntra, and we will continue to invest in a lot of technology to build the infrastructure and support our own as well as third party logistics based on one platform. We are allocating huge amounts of investment for engineering technology.
 
What are the challenges and opportunities you see with SCM?
Challenge is working with all the dependencies. Though we do some part of it on our own, we are still dependent on infrastructure outside. Managing those infrastructural dependencies, managing third parties with or without technology becomes a challenge. But opportunity is there with delivering a good experience to the consumers. 
At Myntra we don't look at ourselves as a big company, we consider ourselves as a small fashion company which is operating supply chain to deliver good experience. We don't look at competitors in SCM.   
 
What are your plans of expansion with SCM?
We are planning to partner with local delivery companies operating in remote locations where we have not been able to reach with our deliveries. We will integrate their systems and our systems technically so that the transaction and delivery flows smoothly.
 
Any new category you are planning to venture into?
We will only be limited to fashion.
 
How do you see the clustered e-retail space?
I think it's still small portion of the market that all players come to occupy today. There is a space for a lot of growth. Eventually, there will be a few big players, but it is a growing market and we are at an early stage while enjoying a lot of growth, market share and leadership. It's good for us if the market grows with more players coming in and together changes the habits and delivers better experience for consumer satisfaction. 
 
Will you also experiment with the webrooming concept?     
At Flipkart level, yes, we may think of it and we will look at all the possibilities for the convenience of the consumer. And we will experiment to see how suitable it is for India, how well it is appreciated here and how well we can do it. Depending on all these factors we will scale the concept. Initially, we will start with webrooming in Mumbai and Bangalore.
 
Inputs from Sunil Pol
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