Online portals graduating to offline retail stores

Despite a rise in online shoppers and e-commerce platforms, many e-retailers are expanding their offline presence by opening stores. For instance, baby care portal Firstcry, may have the most number of offline baby care stores in the country by the year end. From leading fashion retailer Myntra to American retail giant Walmart, are planning to extend their presence to brick-and-mortar retail and vice a versa.

Besides Firstcry, other online players like eyewear seller Lenskart and web-only fashion brand DonebyNone are also scaling up their offline presence. The companies are terming it as natural progression to establish a link between their offline and online customers. Estimated at 2.3 billion dollars (about Rs 14,000 crores) at present, online retail accounts for just 0.4 percent of the overall retail market in India, according to retail advisory firm Technopak.

Progressing from click to brick

Experts believe since online is still a young medium, having a store presence gives credibility of being an established brand name to the company. And touch and feel continue to play an important part of the purchase decisions in majority of people’s lives. Bombayshirt.com launched in August 2012 by Akshay Narvekar is one such example. Started with just three people with stylists personally visiting customers’ homes with swatches of fabric, and mall kiosks serving as points to help people customise their shirts, today Narvekar has opened several stores in Mumbai.

Similarly Chumbak.com by Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda retailing offbeat products, jewellery and clothing launched in April 2010 attracted a lot of customers online. Today, the website contributes only 20 percent of their business, while the company’s 21 offline stores have taken a centre stage. And Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agrawal’s Fabfurnish.com didn’t have funds to invest in a huge store so they started the web-platform in March 2012. And within six months, they opened their first store in Gurgaon offering very limited stock, however, they still have a long way to go.

More online players planning offline stores

bWhile offline apparel retailers and brands including leading corporate houses like Arvind, Raymond, Reliance and Future Group jumped into the competitive ecommerce space, successful online platforms are contemplating establishing a store presence.

Continuing its focus on high margin fashion business, leading online platform, Myntra has decided to open brick-and-mortar stores of its private labels across India by next year. To begin with, the company will open one Roadster shop each in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore followed by stores in other towns and cities. Firstcry.com too has been focusing on expansion of its retail network in smaller towns and cities like Ambala, Bhilai, Srikakulam and Bhagalpur, where customers prefer buying at the stores than online. This hybrid strategy has worked for others like Reverse Logistics Company, which runs refurbished products retailer Greendust. The company sells through its online site and through 250 franchise stores. The brick-and-mortar stores, located mostly in smaller towns, account for 70 percent of its sales.

Eyewear site Lenskart, which is registering sales of one million dollars (around Rs 6 crore) a month, has 20 teams that do eye checkups at a customer's location in the top seven Indian cities. They also have at-home trials, where a buyer can try out five eyewear frames at home before buying one. Experts point out that hybrid retail model also helps in brand building exercise since consumers tend to trust what they can see and feel. Looks like, hybrid is the way ahead for growth of the organized retail industry.