Kolkata: Shying away from e-commerce platforms, leading apparel retailers in the city are coming up with their own online channels. The retailers state that higher discounts on e-commerce platforms trigger price disparity, thus affecting sales at offline stores. This has prompted the retailers to draw up a new business strategy focusing on multichannel price parity.
“If discounts are more on e-commerce portals, it is obvious that offline sales will come down to a trickle. This is what has happened in the past. We are mostly finding it happens in the fashion or garment retail segment. Now, retailers are showing reluctance in e-commerce platforms. Rather they are asking for solutions to strengthen their offline businesses with the help of technology and growing their online business channels,” said Rohit Khetan, chief marketing officer of Ginesys One, a cloud-based retail tech solution company. The company hosted a meeting with 100 retailers and members from direct-to-consumer (D2C) segments in the city recently.
Shitanshu Jhunjhunwalla, director of Turtle told TOI: “About 99% of our products are sold offline and our business focus is on offline stores. We are building our online platform for sales. Currently, we have 30 plus offline stores in Kolkata and suburbs and we are planning to open 10 more in the city this year.”
“We follow a standard pricing policy in online and offline shopping channels. That the craze for online shopping is higher is a myth. During the pandemic online sales were high but now people are back to offline stores,” said Manish Agarwal, president of Mufti, another clothing fashion brand, which has five stores in Kolkata. Karan Goenka, founder director of Citi Style, pointed out that customers are shopping everywhere so retailers should be omnipresent to retain their customer bases in all channels.
