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Tata Sons-promoted Infiniti Retail, which owns consumer durable and electronics chain Croma, has tied up with the country's leading online marketplace Snapdeal.com to launch itself on the portal.
Both the companies would be officially announcing the same tomorrow.
This is second such tie-up from the house of India's largest diversified conglomerate with the New Delhi-based e-commerce major after its Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata picked up a stake in the portal. Last month, Tata Value Homes, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Housing, has entered into a first-of-its-kind, strategic and exclusive partnership with Snapdeal.com to sell residential properties.
E-commerce experts and industry watchers said there could be more such partnerships between the two in apparels and other lifestyle products.
However, more than Ratan Tata's investment in Snapdeal, they feel that as e-commerce is gaining ground and online marketplaces have been able to establish their model, many more brick and mortar retailers are taking the omni-channel route, an initiative by the retailers to better integrate their stores and e-commerce channels.
Arvind Singhal, Chairman of retail consultancy Technopak Advisory, said that such tie-ups will help offline retailers scale up fast and reach out to consumers in a cost-effective way. Similarly, the presence of well-established brands such as Croma on the portals would also give the latter a major push in terms of traffic.
“So now consumers can buy online and pick-up at a nearby store, or order online and get it delivered to home. This will help offline retailers cut the inventory size at the store and list all the products online,” he said, adding that retailers also can use their stores as fulfilment centres.
Croma is already doing that through its own online store and through a similar tie-up with online marketplace Ebay India. Of late several regional retailers such as Viveks of Chennai and Sangeetha Mobiles have listed their shops on Ebay to scale up faster and reach out to consumers in other parts of the country.
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