“We are embracing social very closely. This heralds an era when e-commerce will move from just selling products to engaging customers and building communities,” is what Chairman of Myntra Board and Head of Commerce at Flipkart, Mukesh Bansal said at Myntra’s 4^th Annual Brand Summit.

Leading fashion and lifestyle brands came together under one roof to discuss the future of fashion commerce in India. The theme of the Summit, ‘Leveraging Technology to Build the Future Platform for Fashion’, brought together over 450 leading fashion and lifestyle brands to discuss the future of fashion commerce in India: Innovation, Trends and the Role of Technology in driving the same.

Mukesh Bansal addressed key issues that will define fashion in times to come. Besides the mobile device which will enable fashion portals to address the unique needs of each customer, Big Data will also play a big role in enhancing the fashion experience through image sensing, demand predictions, and analytics-based recommendations. Bansal also spoke about social commerce, namely making online fashion a more social phenomenon and the launch of the Myntra App Version 2.0.

The keynote address was given by Nandan Nilekani, who painted a very encouraging and optimistic picture that technology is going to play in running of businesses in the next five years. Speaking about smartphones, he emphasized how it forms a pillar of technological transformation in India. “People have been completely taken by surprise by the rise of smartphones. Today we are adding 100m smartphones a year. It’s a massive wave. And what’s more, many people in India are experiencing the internet for the first time on their smartphones,” said Nilekani.

According to him, five years down the line the entire ecosystem of business and technology is going to become very relevant for the retail business, especially e-commerce players like Myntra. “Think of a world in 2020. Almost everyone will have a bank account to transact from; most people will have a digital identity in the form of an Aadhar card; and, 600-700m people will have smartphones. It is a very different world. In this world, the way we do business, the way we transact and do commerce, the way we entertain and the way we educate – everything is going to be different.”

At the same time, Ananth Narayanan, CEO of Myntra, spoke about the importance of brands and their growth in the next five years. “Online fashion consumers are largely brand seeking. Brands will grow and define the future of fashion. We expect the branded fashion market to grow twice as fast as the overall fashion market in the next five years.”

Myntra’s Chief Technology Officer, Shamik Sharma along with Head of eCommerce, Prasad Kompalli and Chief Product Officer, Ambarish Kenghe were present and shared key insights on how Myntra aims to transform the way people consume fashion online. In fact, version 2.0 of the Myntra App is going to do just that. Watch this space for more details on the new version of the app.