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Divya Trivedi

Ahmedabad, June 16 The K. Raheja Group-promoted Hypercity anticipates 15 per cent of its turnover to come from the multi-channel sales route of catalogue retailing and online sales, Mr Rajeev Nair, Business Head, Hypercity Argos, told Business Line.

“As we concentrate on the big-box format of retail, we will look to increase our sales from the multi-channel routes of catalogue retailing as well as online retailing of our products,” he said.

The next three months are expected to be crucial for the retailer as it plans to adopt a high pitched advertising strategy through the print and radio media. Without sharing the financials, Mr Nair said that the cost of advertising will be greater than that of physical storage. The company has signed up JWT as its advertising agency, and focus will be on educating customers on the benefits of catalogue and online shopping.

“Since the concept of catalogue retailing is new here, and with 5,000 options in products to choose from online, we will need to educate the customers about the benefits of ordering from home,” said Mr Nair.

The retailer made its Web site transactional after soft launching it a week ago and started its marketing last Saturday. All branded and private label products available at the hypermarket under the non-food category will be on offer for purchase through the Web site and the catalogue, Argos, the second edition of which is to be launched soon.

The Web site has had 12 to 13 transactions per day since its soft launch began and this, according to Mr Nair, is a positive number. A few sales in the furniture category through online payments took the store by surprise. According to him, around 10 per cent of the customer base that used to call the call centre for various product enquiries will now shift to buying online.

Currently, online sales has been rolled out in Mumbai and Thane but will soon be ready to launch in Jaipur, Bangalore and Hyderabad as warehouses come up in these regions, he added.

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