‘Business model with a human face preferred here’

Do-it-yourself (DIY) or do-it-for-me (DIFM)? At least for some more time, India will continue to be a DIFM country, says Damodar Mall, CEO, Reliance Retail.

In Chennai to deliver the fourth Raghu Pillai Memorial Oration on ‘Supermarketwalas vs SuperAppwalas’, Mall said technology at the back end and a human face to the service on offer is the model that would work here. So much so that Amazon is testing an assisted shopping service where customers place an order at its shopping point and return to collect it when it arrives.

Mall said he would still prefer buying a cup of coffee at a place where it’s handed over by a person and not a dispensing machine. In the days of grocery apps where one can order vegetables and other household supplies, this penchant of Indian customers for human interaction would be worth keeping in mind.

However, this does not mean that apps do not have a future. Physical stores and apps are two very different entities and will co-exist depending on the needs and the moods of customers, he said.

He observed that in a modern retail store, one starts consuming and develops a sense of ownership even before one pays for their purchases. In the case of clothes, for instance, one can try on a dress, take a selfie and share it with friends before buying it. In digital buying, as with apps, there is immense choice, but the interaction is constrained.

On how both business formats have their own expenses to contend with, he said online businesses also have to think of returns, which account for 25-33 per cent of transactions.

The lecture was organised by the Madras Management Association and Coaching Foundation of India. The late Pillai was a retail industry stalwart credited with the spread of modern retail in the country.

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