Online start-ups to become app-exclusive

With Myntra deciding to shut down its website for online commerce and Flipkart following suit, more and more internet-based start-ups are aiming towards becoming active only on mobile applications. The Economic Times reported that a few local start-ups like Zopper, Doormint, PepperTap and Local Oye are planning to push their operations and financing using only their respective mobile applications.

Market studies have shown that e-commerce heavyweights like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Quikr, Ola and Myntra receive 70-80% of their traffic from mobile phones. This may have influenced online companies to the decision of using only mobile apps as their platform of commerce. Flipkart and Myntra have already shut down their mobile websites and encourage their users to their respective apps instead.

Start-ups who focus on hyper-local approach like food delivery and home service firms are expected to soon follow this trend of being app-exclusive as they aim to capture important real estate points on the smartphone network.

TrulyMadly, a popular dating platform has planned to stop its website operations by June as only 3% of its users register via websites. CEO Sachin Bhatia expressed that it is faster to carry out product changes on the TrulyMadly app.

Companies like Ola, TinyOwl and Grofers have grown rapidly due to heavy traffic on their mobile applications. Anand Subramanian, director of marketing communication at Ola, said – “website as a source of bookings has been negligible, as 80% of the bookings come through the app and around 20% through the call centre.”

Meanwhile, Nimisha Jain, partner and director at The Boston Consulting Group said that websites are integral in online business models since they allow customers to first test the reliability of a product before using its mobile application. She also noted that it can be tedious for the user as well as the device to power too many apps and the internet connectivity may not be strong enough.