Online fashion retailer Myntra has introduced a feature on its app that allows users to shop in Indian languages, improving discoverability and expanding the company’s reach.
‘Vernacular search’ will help Myntra to expand its customer base and reach more places in the country, said the company. “With this feature, we are enabling our customers to search for products in their preferred native languages, breaking language barriers and making fashion even more inclusive,” said Raghu Krishnananda, chief product and technology Officer, Myntra.
The feature allows consumers to browse and shop for fashion, beauty and lifestyle products in 10 Indian languages other than Hindi. The languages are Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Punjabi, and Assamese. The feature supports searches typed in 'Hinglish', or Hindi queries in English, for example, ‘Kala Kurta’.
In its next phase, in addition to Hinglish, customers will also be able to search for queries in their language using English script. The feature is also equipped to handle the nuances of certain words in regional languages as well as complex queries.
Walmart-owned Myntra has recorded significant growth in the non-metro and Tier 2 cities and towns for online shopping, with 20 per cent of searches being non-English. The company said after it launched the feature earlier this month, there has been a marked improvement in customers finding precise results for their searches in native languages. To continuously cater to the non-metro customer base, Myntra also works with creators that create content in regional languages on their social handles.
According to the report “How India Shops Online 2022”, there has been a 5x growth in voice-search users and 3x growth in vernacular-search users over the past year. These innovations are helping make shopping easier for a new wave of online shoppers.
