MyNtra has launched a live trading platform driven by influencer ‘M-Live’ as Flipkart’s online fashion store seems to expand its social trade business.
With this launch, MyNtra will be one of the first major e-commerce platforms in the country to adopt a direct shopping model, which has seen significant success in China through players like Taobao Live Alibaba, Bypance Douyin and Kuaiishou.
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Google also experimented with this format by performing a variety of live shopping events on their respective platforms in the United States.
When launched, M-Live allows influencers and experts to host video sessions directly from a variety of fashion and beauty products and concepts of criturized forces by them, in MyNtra applications, allow viewers to shop directly from direct streaming, thus facilitate real time involvement between consumers and brands.
Users can enter this direct event through the Studio section of the MyNtra application, which is very similar to the Instagram direct session. One can post questions, share their feedback, see other comments and also follow the creator of Livestream hosting.
What is different is a special product tray at the bottom of the screen that will display all the products on display by influencer. One can knock whatever product to add it to their wish list or buy it by making an order without leaving Livestream.
MyNtra and SVP products officers Lalitha Ramani told MoneyControl that they developed this platform from the bottom up and could support up to 70,000 users at the same time.
“We built it from the beginning because fashion and beauty accuracy is very important to us whether it’s a color representation or glass-to-glass latency,” Ramani said. “If I ask a question to the host whether certain products will work for acne skin or sensitive skin, the person must be able to answer it in real time. We have been able to take him to around 10-14 seconds,” he added.
Building an in-house platform also provides extensibility to expand to various other use cases such as one on one stylist suggestion, or speak performance with several hosts, Ramani said. Mytra currently offers a separate application for influencers to host their live broadcasts.
This Live session was monitored by Myntra, and Ramani said they planned to expand the moderation capabilities of the company using artificial intelligence (AI) and engine learning (ML) in the future.
Achint Setia – VP & Business Head – Social Commerce, MyNtra said they were reducing host influencers who came to the platform and currently experimenting with various streams of monetization including commissions.
“The commission is something we will move to the coming year. We also explore what is most suitable for their best creators and interests at this stage because the phenomenon is still very new,” Faithful said.
MyNtra plans to stir almost 1,000 hours of direct video content per month in the near future. This will be the main component of the wider MyNtra Social Trade Charter, which is currently placed under MyNtra Studio.
“Social trade is an integral part of how people shop at MyNtra. When we move forward, we see this as a significant contributor to the overall MyNtra proposition,” said Faithfully. He added that they still explored other models of social trade including reseller models and group purchase models.
He said about 20% of Mytra’s monthly active users are currently involved with social trade initiatives and they expect this number to rise to 50-60% of the fashion e-tailer user base in the next 3-4 years.