Mumbai-based Pretr is Myntra’s second acquisition this year  

As fashion ecommerce market leader Myntra continues to focus on its omnichannel strategy, it has acquired Pretr, a Mumbai based end-to-end omnichannel platform for retail. The acquisition is expected to enable Myntra to forge omnichannel partnerships with various brands on its platform. Myntra, which already has partnered with over 2000 leading fashion and lifestyle brands, aims to provide a comprehensive solution to retailers’ omnichannel journey using Pretr.

Founded in 2016 by Bhavik Jhaveri and Ankur Joshi, Pretr integrates brands’ online and offline segments. It began as a platform that enables discovery of what’s in stores, check product availability, shop online, and get same day delivery or reserve online to try and pick up from store. Its omnichannel suite has been deployed at leading retailers in India and the Middle East. It now provides retailers with solutions for Endless Aisle, order management, clienteling, store analytics, etc.

Pretr’s significance

“The Pretr Endless Aisle solution will also help retailers increase footfalls at their offline stores, and improve in-store conversions. A customer walking into a small format store will now be able to check the brand’s entire catalogue, including the stock available in other cities and choose to pick the product later from that store or order it for delivery at their doorstep,” a press release from the company said.

With Pretr, a brand’s customers on Myntra will have a unified view of the brand’s inventory online and offline. The press release states that Pretr will be able to avail value added services such as same day delivery, click and collect, and return or exchange at the brand’s stores. Brands, in turn will be able to increase their sales, improve inventory utilisation and offer richer customer experience across all nodes.

Ananya Tripathi, Head Category Business and Chief Strategy Officer, Myntra, said, “We at Myntra are very bullish about the opportunity to transform the industry by creating a seamless technology and operations backbone agnostic of channel. Through the partnership with Pretr, we are looking to be leaders in this by partnering with 50 strategic brands in the next one year across all their stores. We will enable all the Myntra private brand offline stores to deliver the most unique and differentiated experience in the industry to customers.”

Omnichannel is priority

Myntra has been building on its omnichannel strategy by opening physical stores for its private labels. The reason is simple: be present where the customer is.

For Roadster, one of the most popular among Myntra’s 15 private labels, it has opened two stores in Bengaluru. Named Roadster Go, these stores are digitised, with RFID-enabled digital screens, promise customers more time to discover and shop, and less time to check out. Myntra-Jabong CEO Ananth Narayanan had stated that it is set to launch 50 brick-and-mortar stores in two years for its private labels, across cities, out of which 15 will be opened this fiscal.

Second acquisition this year

Earlier this year, Myntra acquired Bengaluru-based startup Witworks to be part of the tech team. Their capabilities have been put to good use in ‘Blink Go,’ a fitness wearable, developed completely in-house at the Myntra Innovation Labs.

Aiming to reinvent fashion ecommerce with deep tech, Myntra is now investing heavily in data sciences. The Flipkart-owned company recently opened a data sciences centre in Silicon Valley too.