It was a full-page ad in The Times of India that triggered my interest in the Myntra two-day Fashion Feed sale. The sale promised discounts upto 70%. The offer was attractive, but in India very often you end up feeling cheated and frustrated with “upto” sales. The products you want to buy have very low discounts, and products that are worthless carry 70% discount tags. Clearly, the winner in such sales is the merchant and not you.
Myntra has built a good reputation as a fashion retailer, and I decided to try my luck. I downloaded the Myntra app on my mobile phone, and scanned the Myntra store for bargains. There were products that were being sold at 70% discount, and there were products that were being sold at 60%, 50% and 40% discounts.
But what interested me more were the notifications that were pushed by the Myntra team on my mobile phone. They were a good example of how to, and also how not to, push and prod potential customers to browse the store.
Six notifications were received from Myntra.com on Saturday, which was the last day of the sale. The sale alerts were short, ranging from 60 to 76 characters (with spaces). In terms of word count, the shortest sale alert was of 12 words and the longest was of 17 words. (The word count does not include the store name and the time)
Here’s an analysis of the six notifications:
Myntra 08:00
Newest collections on Sale | Nike | Puma | Forever 21 | Mango | And
many more fav brands on offer!
There was nothing in the notification that was exciting. It was simple, and matter-of-fact, and gave no reason to a customer to visit the Myntra store.
Myntra 10:59
Take 3@Price of 1!
Choose from over 10K Styles | Rush,
Not a lot of time left!
The second alert was a little more tempting. But then again even offline sales make similar offers. The good thing was there was a call to action. The message exhorted you to rush as not much time was left. This was a better notification.
Myntra 15: 14
The Rs 400 store
As real as it gets | What would you buy?!
My first reaction on seeing the third notification was that the prices had been slashed to Rs 400. But that was not the reality. The products below Rs 400 were very few. The better products were much above this price. The notification may have succeeded in persuading some fence sitters to log into the Myntra store. But it’s hard to say if they would have been happy. More than that, the sale alert had no call to action. It ended with a tame question: “What would you buy?”
Myntra 16:48
!!FLAT 70% OFF!!
Redefining Epic offers | For two hours
only, Hurry!
The fourth alert is was much better. A flat 70% sale. This would have the adrenalin going in most customers. But what made the notification even better was that the 70% discount had a short lifeline. You only had two hours to grab the offer. Good sales copy. The only drawback was technical. Ideally, the announcement “For two hours only” should have been in the same line. The line break should have been avoided by selecting a shorter word in place of “Redefining”.
Myntra 19:15
1st Time Ever: Rs 4000 OFF
Enjoy the Flash Deal | Drop everything
& Shop on!
The call to action was great in the fifth alert too. You were told to drop everything, and rush. But a discount of Rs 4,000? The offer raised a question. The products would have to be over that sum to merit such a discount. How many such products were on sale? The sale alert left much unanswered.
Myntra 21:12
O.M.G. It’s FLAT 75% OFF!
You’ve got the platinum offer | 60
mins to make it count!
The last sale alert was the best. It caught your attention with the youthful and powerful OMG appeal. Then it told you that the discount was a flat 75% now. What’s more you only had 60 minutes to make it count. Great. This is what a sales alert should be. You only wished that “60 mins” were in the same line. Then this would have become even better.
However, what we need to accept is that it is not easy to write compelling copy in 12 to 17 words; copy that can persuade app users to leave everything, and visit the site. The Myntra team was able to achieve it.
( I visited the Myntra store three times after receiving the alerts. It is possible that you may disagree with my analysis. Please improve it with your comments.)
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