The race to go Omnichannel

 Earlier this week, I had been to Kanchipuram, around 90kms west of Chennai on store visits to review the team’s performance. While I have been doing these visits for over 15 years now, what I love most about the trips is the local cuisine I love to enjoy. However, being a long and hard working day, I chose to have a quick bite and not the usual fare from the quaint town which is famous for its numerous temples. My colleague and I decided to eat a pizza thinking it would be quick and the restaurant, less crowded. I was wrong on both counts. Most of the 10 tables were crowded. Barring two which had business-attired guests, all others were a family crowd, including kids. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I hardly expected such an outing in a Tier 3 town like this one. We profiled the customers and were raving about the economic transformation happening in smaller towns. All this while we were waiting for over 20 mins for our beloved pizzas.

When I first went to the cashier to order and enquired about Combos (or deals), she immediately asked me to order online, for they would have better discounts than in-store. Coming from the cashier herself, I was stunned – and I am guessing this would have been an informal gag ordained by her seniors and managers. Or maybe, not. Perhaps, she was simply helping a customer to get the best deal possible. Giving her a benefit of doubt, I hail her levels of customer service and caring offered to us. To my surprise, the online offer was way better than what we would get “at the counter”. Just that instead of home delivery, I had to click “take-away”. Sans the delivery time, the pizza and add-ons took the same time as otherwise. We spent as much time eating the maida-laced grub as much we spent waiting for them to arrive. As I chewed the vegetables, I was wondering what is it with the recent race to go omni-channel (or Phygital) as many retailers and brands claim to be.

Reliance Retail is experimenting with a 30 minute delivery possibility while Big Bazaar has already pioneered a 3 hr door delivery – both for orders placed online. This is in direct competition to Swiggy’s Instamart which promises delivery in less than 60 mins while newbie Zepto is assuring 10 mins delivery for essentials. Only difference being Reliance Fresh and Big Bazaar deliver from their offline retail stores while the e-commerce portals deliver from warehouses or “ghost stores”. Even as the pandemic hit the roof, fashion brands like Levis, Indian Terrain, Ethos watch boutique, Hidesign leatherware and eyewear retail chain Lenskart and many more set forth their e-commerce websites stronger than ever before, giving discerning customers an opportunity to buy clothes and accessories online. As the offline stores started reopening after the first and second wave of the pandemic-enforced lockdown, customers have started coming to the physical stores though the online entities remain as they were and there is a continued thrust and focus by the companies to push the vertical. In fact, many companies had invested heavily in creating online categories to cater to the audience due to FoMo even as their competition was lacing it up. 

Meanwhile, Amazon is planning to open hundreds of offline retail stores in the US & the UK across formats such as Fresh, Go and the coveted 4-Star stores which stock merchandise that have atleast 4-star or more reviews and ratings on it’s website and Apps. Back in India, Big Basket has opened it’s first ever physical retail outlet in Bangalore while talks are on that Flipkart will also launch similar experiential stores in India’s tech capital Bangalore. Chinese mobile & electronics brand Xiaomi now has several such stores across India known as “Mi Home” which showcases the company’s innovations and prowess. But one can place orders for these models only online and some only on it’s own digital assets which in turn get delivered to the customers. Samsung & LG meanwhile are converting their offline stores in to display-only formats while delivery happens from a warehouse nearby. Reliance Retail formats Fresh and Digital are pioneering “order offline, delivery at home” model while Croma has already been allowing the reverse - “order online pick at the store!” 

While on one side it certainly looks logical to have an e-commerce transaction model, the bigger question is do consumers really need it. Before I try to disprove or prove the hypothesis, I also reckon there is no one right answer, atleast for now. Going by the recent BlackFriday to Cyber Monday Thanksgiving Sales in the USA, which is the peak shopping period in the country and China’s Singles Day sales on 11/11 every year – both of which were tepid and beyond a surprise to brands and retailers, it is well established that e-commerce shopping is here to stay for the long term. In India though, things are not so crystal clear. While Amazon’s month long sale in October ahead of Deepavali and Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sales garnered a lot of interest, it is also combined with wholesale shopping – in other words, shopkeepers buying stuff to resell. The fact that customers are back at Malls and local shopping areas is testimony to the fact that India is really an offline led market. So I wonder why brands and retailers are pushing the envelope to be everything to everyone. The coveted One Size Fits All (OSFA) model simply doesn’t work in India – be it footwear sizes or those for shirts or trousers – and also for business models. What works in the Western World may or simply may not work in our land. And Brands & Retailers must come to terms with this. 

While on one side, precious dollars are being spent on building and maintaining shopping websites (and Apps) for the sake of customers, what companies do not realise is that it also distracts and confuses customers on their current and future purchase pattern. If consumers are used to shopping in a particular way for a while, there is a high chance that habits are formed. As the saying goes, Habits die hard. Once a pattern is established, going back the other way is difficult. Unless companies are sure to continue with the service – e-commerce & omni-channel in this case, it is best not to experiment something which cannot be continued in the long run. In the garb of Omni-channel Retailing, many Brands are taking that extra effort just to appease their Investors, the Board and in many cases, to simply make the business owners happy. Tall ask.

While there is no doubt Omni-channel is the way forward, it really is NOT the only way forward. The sooner, we as Retailers & Professionals realise this, is best for our own peace!

Smiling Baby 2.0

The biggest challenge for most of us in our lives, especially for Startup Entrepreneurs is to learn from our past. We have all heard that it is perfectly fine for us to make mistakes. In fact, in my formative years as a Retail Professional when I worked at Pantaloon Retail (now The Future Group), there used to be posters in our office that it was “Ok” to make mistakes as long as you don’t repeat them and of course, one learns from them. Indeed I have made a number of mistakes in my Retail Career spanning 20 years but my specialty has been that I have gotten up back every single time after faltering with some amazing learning. And that’s what this article is all about.

It’s been in my mind to set-up my own Retail venture as an option for Entrepreneurship for some time now. From Education to Food to Tech to Product Retail, we (my wife & I) dabbled for a long time on which segment to choose. My only criteria, having signed up 140 cafes for Café Coffee Day and 160 Dealership Outlets for Royal Enfield (both of them all India) – I was General Manager – Business Development at both companies - was that the business I was about to build should be Scalable, Saleable and Profitable.

Among many other options that we finalized was the one retailing baby products – which is perhaps the only category other than food that has a potential sale 365 days a year and is almost price inelastic so to say. And that’s how my first startup venture Smiling Baby was conceptualized way back in 2013. While the business model was completely fool proof and continues to remain so even after 4 years, there have a few shortcomings as well. I took each of those lessons with grace and have become a much better Entrepreneur over the past 36 months.

Now as we enter in to our second phase, Smiling Baby 2.0 as I call, there a few learning that I have already implemented. I spoke about these initiatives at the recently held ReTechCon2017 at Mumbai, organized by Retailers Association of India, the industry body that represents Retailers of all sizes.

Among other things, the first thing that we have implemented is a truly “omni-channel” retail model. We already have one store in Chennai and are setting up two more in Coimbatore shortly. All the existing and future stores are connected together on the backend with the Retail store and a website (+ Apps) in the front-end. When a customer visits a store and looks for a product which may not be physically at the store but is still available on the website/app, she will still be able to order the item and it gets picked up and delivered to her from some other store where they may have it in stock. And all this within less than 24 hours from the time of ordering! E-Commerce, as a habit for shopping is getting better by the day in India and that’s been my biggest learning in my journey.

That Amazon has purchased Whole Foods strengthens my model of Omni-channel because that’s precisely what Retail in the 21^st century is going to be.  Customers need a product right there when they need it. While the e-commerce warehouses will continue to remain, it is all about effectively utilizing the retail store fronts which we have all built. The power of leverage is immense and we at Smiling Baby would stand testimony for the same. Watch this space.

Casenation Bloggers Meet

I was invited to attend a blogger meet a few days back, which was organized by Chennai's leading social Media Agency EchoVME's DInfluencer outfit. The location was none other than Coffee Tales, a neighborhood cafe tucked in the bylanes of Anna Nagar East. We were all seated by 6.30pm and in a few minutes, Sorav Jain of EchoVME gave an introduction about Casenation, a budding startup from Chennai which makes premium back cases for various smartphones. He showcased some unique products of the brand and later invited Amit, the Founder of Casenation to present the brand.

Amit introduced himself as a thoroughbred Madrasi with strong roots with the local culture. The BRand was incubated a few months back by his friends and him and they are currently self-funded. They have a manufacturing facility in the outskirts of the city and have a dedicated design team which creates unique and funky stuff periodically. They have cases for almost all smartphone brands and are increasing the portfolio regularly. On the distribution front, they are currently present online through their dedicated website http://www.casenation.in which seems to have a neat interface although they could add a lot more features such as add to cart from the product icon, compare products, etc. to name a few. 

They also have a physical presence at cafes such as Coffee Tales. Amit insists that this is a product that potential customers should touch and feel and hence they are focussing on offline expansion as well. This hybrid expansion, popularly known as Omni-Channel Retailing is fast catching with the likes of Croma and Ezone promoting a similar experience where customers can order online and collect the products offline.

Amit also proudly says all his products are locally sourced and manufactured giving a fillip to the Make In India Initiative that is promoted by the Narendra Modi Government. Later he showcased some of their unique products among which what caught most of my attention was a wireless charges for iPhones! A small extension needs to be added to the iPhone on the charging point and the phone needs to be just placed on the device - bingo! it gets charged... He also showed some very interesting wooden cases which were, though a tad expensive had a great fit and finish. 

Later, Team EchoVME organised an interesting game - one of us had to start a story with the imagery on the case we had and it goes on like a chain. We started about a girl imagining to visit India, riding on a bike to Ladakh and finally attaining nirvana at a Budhist Monastery and so on. Was a fun and interesting game. The evening ended with a bag full of goodies including a Parker Pen, a Leather Writing Pad and a Gift Voucher from Casenation to buy a case of our choice for ourselves or our loved ones, which was a kind gesture. Overall a very well organized event by Casenation & EchoVME. Look forward to catching up more with fellow bloggers soon!