Myntra to double office, warehousing space

Barely two months after Flipkart inked a deal with Embassy Office Parks to lease 1.5 million sq ft of office space in Bengaluru, fashion and lifestyle e-tailer Myntra.com, a Flipkart company, is all set to double its office and warehousing space by 1.1 million [11 lakh] sq ft over the next six months.

Myntra currently has 2.45 lakh sq ft of office space in Bengaluru and Gurgaon, of which 2 lakh sq ft are in Bengaluru.

An additional 4 lakh sq ft is in the process of being leased by the company in Bengaluru which will be completed in phases by August.

“Our new office building in Bengaluru, inaugurated last month is already full with 700 employees.

“The additional office space of 4 lakh sq ft can accommodate over 2,500 employees and will be absorbed over the next 18-24 months,” Srinivas P Reddy, Vice-President & Head – Real Estate and Workplace, Myntra, told BusinessLine .

Myntra is augmenting its existing 7.50 lakh sq ft of warehousing space in Bengaluru and Gurgaon with an additional 7 lakh sq ft of warehousing space spread across Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon.

As e-commerce firms continue to look for ways to reduce shipping costs and delivery lead time to customers, the demand for warehousing and logistics space for building back-end infrastructure is all set to outstrip demand for office space, say industry watchers.

Although Reddy declined to disclose the amount invested in acquiring 1.1 million sq ft of office and warehousing space, realtors estimate that it could be anywhere between ₹4 crore and ₹5 crore.

The company is also ramping up its all-India delivery centre network.

“We are pretty much set for the next two years as far as office space goes. However, we will continue to ramp up warehouses and delivery centres around the country to get closer to customers, ship faster to them as well as reduce shipping costs.

“We have 85 delivery centres around the country, and each centre spans 400-500 sq ft. We will have 100 by the end of December and ramp this up to 150 by next year,” said Reddy.

Besides getting closer to customers, Myntra is working on delighting them with a personalised shopping experience on its site. “We are halfway through with our effort to personalise the shopping experience by steering shoppers quickly to their top preferences without them having waste too much time on discovery,” said Prasad Kompalli, Head of Sales & Marketing and Chief Revenue Officer, Myntra.

The company attracts 3 million unique visitors to its site everyday, a number that is growing month-on-month.

Fashion as a category is growing fast and is expected to beat the top selling Electronics category in the $3.1-billion Indian e-commerce market by industry experts.

“Fashion sales online will overtake electronics, constituting 35 per cent of overall e-commerce sales by 2017 from 30 per cent at present,” said Ganesh Subramanian, COO, Myntra.

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