Delhi’s Select Citywalk mall plans attack into e-commerce to fill gap between online & offline business
The Delhi’s Select City walk mall is one of the India’s most popular shopping spaces. It is planning to enter in to e-commerce to be a bridge between online business and offline business. But the accepted sales being racked up by the online sites, the vision could be regarding the protection from the inevitable obsolescence of brick-and mortar retail through a click and-mortar strategy.
Entering in to the online shopping is unfavorable for the future growth. The Select City walk mall wants to behave like the bridge to fill the gap between offline and online business and by offering virtual showroom as well.
Mr. Arjun Sharma, director and promoter of Select City walk says that the online is the natural extension while the mall developers have an insider’s edge.
Mr. Sharma also added that the mall have seen the growth of the retail business in India and is ready to deal with online retail.
Mr. Sharma also added that after so many years in business They had gained knowledge of the business, margins in the business and have know how regarding what brands are coming, what deals are happening etc. We have better perception of retail business than the people who are not in the retail business. The web site prices will be same as the prices in the stores. This will go against the normal sense the buyers shifted towards the online purchase due to cheap price. The online business has gained millions of dollars as investors are planning to catch next big wave expected to wipe India. The excitement is added by Flipkart.com by saying that they could collect $1 billion in revenue this year. The sales of Flipkart.com will almost 40 percent of the Rs15,500-crore revenue of India’s largest retail conglomerate Future Group, which has been in the business for almost 17 years and runs a nationwide network of more than 1,000 stores.
Mr.Sharma says that the traditional retail will however continue to select City walk’s mainstay. He further says that the brick and mortar is a different thing and in this country brick-and-mortar is not going away for a long time and it’s still a relevant part of our retailing.
The Select Citywalk is recently analyzing favourable strategies and has hired Technopak Advisors and a Bangalore technology company to suggest it. The company is focusing at the market place model in which existing tenants sell their brands alongside products marketed by the mall, for which it will enter into separate deals with brands.
The Select Citywalk finalize the model and the name of its project in the next three months. This plan involves the conversion of existing web site in to the Ecommerce platform. The Westfield Group is one of the world’s largest mall operators with more than 100 shopping centers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US, ventured into e-commerce in 2010. In 2013, the company is going to convert its web site into “searchable mall” model where consumers can look for products to either buy at it stores or directly from brand websites.
The Ambience Group, which runs two malls in NCR, is also focusing the possibility of entering the e-commerce.
The other top malls like High Street Phoenix, InOrbit and Infiniti in Mumbai and Pacific in Delhi, said that they are not planning to enter in to online shopping.
Source: The Economic Times
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