Videocon gears up to revive e-commerce operations

Taking a cue from other conglomerates that are re-inventing their e-commerce models, Videocon Group is taking a fresh shot at online selling. The company will be launching an online marketplace under its existing eDigiworld site.

Its newly floated retail company, Techno Kart India, formed by merging all its retail formats (Next, Digiworld and Planet M) plans to launch eDigiworld, which will serve as a marketplace for its 350-odd franchises, along with any retailer willing to become a franchise to sell their inventory.

Sanjay Karwa, CEO of Techno Kart India, said, “We are planning to give a platform to our franchises through a market place driven hyper local model, where the nearest retailer for Digiworld will do deliveries.

“Apart from inviting all our franchise partners to join us, the rest of the entire universe of 30,000 consumer durable retailers is also welcome, as long as they become our franchises.”

The retail company of the Videocon Group has been trying to engage in e-commerce through its company owned portal Next.co.in but has not seen much traction in sales.

Considering that consumer electronic sales have been skewed towards the three big e-commerce companies (Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal) due to heavy discounting, Techno Kart has been feeling the pinch of lacklustre sales through its company-owned websites like Next.co.in and Planet M.in, which are expected to be discontinued soon.

E-commerce will be used primarily to reach out to those markets where Videocon Group does not have its stores, apart from controlling pricing through the channel.

“We want to drive some sanity in consumer durable pricing, which is not possible through other e-commerce players that are disrupting the retail ecosystem. Since we will be in charge of our own e-commerce platform, we can control prices for the category apart from servicing distant consumers who do not have access to our stores,” he added.

Besides, the inventory of its retail formats like Next and Planet M will also get sold through the eDigiworld e-commerce platform.

Emulating e-commerce strategies of existing established players, eDigiworld will have its own delivery systems through its hyper local model.

As Karwa says, “Just like the big e-commerce players, we will make sure that Digiworld retailers also deliver and manage the logistics by themselves.”