Omni-channel selling : De-risking your brand for the future.
Offline Retail is facing an existential threat. Brands need to de-risk their over dependence on marketplaces and build truly a omni-channel business to sustain offline channel and grow their online sales share.
Our washing machine broke down last month and for a change, we decided to give Amazon / Flipkart and TataCliq a break and shop offline. This would be our first shopping trip in over 18 months.
We headed down to a few well-known showrooms in Kochi. These showrooms once dominated advertisement space on print and television media. Their presence has significantly dwindled now with a few stray ads even during the “season” months.
Showrooms which were once thronged by bargain hunters during the festive season wore a deserted look.
While the aisles were flush with inventory, there were only a handful of sales staff to help the customers. A stark contrast to dozens of sales persons waiting to pounce the moment you entered the showroom.
A certain brand has a direct drive technology, a sharp contrast to belt driven washing machines which meant reduced power consumption and cleaner wash. Washing machines now came with a rat mesh and incorporated the “inverter” technology. They also detailed the difference between top loading and front loading machines, A brand which was good in front loading tech and not so good in top loading tech, the differences in warranty and after sales service levels between and thier own feedback on which model was the “hot” selling one.
When the salesmen went to the billing section to prepare a formal quote, I would slyly open the app to check out the prices. It was a pleasant surprise to find the showroom prices to be in close in the range of a few hundred rupees, if not cheaper for certain models.
I would have never learnt any of this stuff shopping online. The knowledgeable sales men showcased technical and value props across the brands, addressed FAQs in a way that could not be googled and made my shopping experience more wholesome. I walked away being able to justify why I selected a particular brand and a model for a certain price.
Post purchase experience was awesome too with delivery and installation being well coordinated between the showroom and the brand.
But these showrooms are now facing a stark future and the salesmanship as an art is dying. Operational and Capex costs that were once justifiable simply are not working out as walk-ins traffic remains low. Along with these multi brand chains and stand alone showrooms that are scattered around the nook and corner of our country, the vast network of distributors who cater to these outlets also face a bleak future.
Online marketplaces with their deep discounts and subsidies have cornered the next generation of buyers who will be buying a new homes and stuffing them up with latest gadgets. However, brands will face existential threat if they solely depend on marketplaces as their digital sales funnel. As marketplaces grow powerful, their claim on margins, ad charges, traffic routing charges etc will keep increasing. Not to mention cannibalization by higher paying brands or by private labels.
Brands instead of channeling their online traffic to marketplaces, need to start building their own e-store. However, they should not alienate the existing distribution and retail network by cannibalizing current offline sales. If fact online sales should augment offline revenue and improve ROI across the supply chain. It is in the brands interest to sustain and empower their offline channel partners and build a truly omnichannel business.
Atto Market enables brands to implement last mile commerce with its unique micro-store technology.
The technology allows companies to roll out branded e-commerce stores across geographies via micro-stores that are managed by local authorized distributors / retail partners showcasing localized pricing & products and enabling order fulfillment via authorized channel partners.
💡 Branded e-commerce store with custom domain.
💡 Store Policies, UI/UX, Distributor / Retail network design by the brands.
💡 Authorized distributors and retailers fulfill orders generated from allocated geographies, hold inventory and receive payments directly into bank accounts via payment gateways of their choice.
💡 Brands can monitor individual micro-store SLAs and micro-store KPIs
➡️ To know more, visit us at https://attomarket.com/
➡️ To schedule a demo., kindly DM or drop us an email at contactus@doctorsbazaar.com
