Today, the e-commerce industry in India is estimated to be around 20,000 crore, which is expected to grow in the coming years. However, before jumping into the e-commerce bandwagon, the retailers have to analyze and understand whether e-commerce is the key for success in day-to-day retailing, and how it is different from running offline businesses.
Many retailers start their e-commerce portals to generate new leads and to increase brand visibility among net-savvy individuals. Moreover, to draw customers to their offline stores, these retailers use the online medium to market their products. But, if an offline retail store wants to create an e-commerce store, they need to understand few ground rules of running own online shopping site. For instance, while more and more people tend to make their purchases online, there are still individuals that want to purchase products only in the traditional ‘touch and feel’ way. As these individuals are not interested in products that they cannot touch or analyze, the e-commerce portals have to draw strategies to cater to all types of buyers.
On the other hand, it is also true that gaining ‘online-offline’ synergy is the key to success in day-to-day retailing. Retailers like Shoppers Stop, Ezeego1.com and GKB Optical cater to both the offline and online customers through their virtual as well as traditional stores. By marketing their products in the e-commerce portals, these retailers have tasted success in selling their products in both the mediums. For instance, Ezeego1.com was started initially as an online travel portal, however, the demand of traditional customers made it to open franchisee stores in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. In this year alone, Ezeego1.com is planning to open another 20 offline franchisee stores in these cities, which clearly demonstrates the role of e-commerce in the success of retail businesses.
The advantages of starting an e-commerce portal for retailers is numerous, and one of them being serving to more number of customers with minimum investment. ‘GKB Optical’ caters to offline customers in 17 cities through their brick and mortar stores, and now after opening their online stores; it has started catering to customers from more than 360 cities. This proves that opening up of online stores eliminates geographical boundaries, and the retailers will be able to cater to a wide range of customers without making huge investments. Moreover, the affordable e-commerce solutions offered based on monthly SaaS fees makes opening of online stores, an easy and pleasant experience for retailers. If you are a retailer, and want to know more about building and managing effective e-commerce portals, please write me at shailendra@animonlive.com or call on +91-9811303373.
